One Lonely Summer
by Peter Kanto
(BH-982)


CHAPTER ONE 

Susan needed the car that bright December morning. She rushed to get the 
breakfast dishes cleared and washed so that the kitchen wouldn't look like 
the ruins of Pompeii when she came back. Gil was singing as he ran an 
electric razor over his face. He sang just a little off tune, but the effect 
wasn't unpleasant. He knew the words to a lot of songs and Susan liked to 
hear his boisterous voice ringing through the house. His singing meant that, 
for a little while at least, he wasn't worrying about the business. 

She had just finished running a damp sponge over the table in the dining 
area adjoining the kitchen when Gil came in. He was dressed in fresh whites. 
His name, Gil Emory, was sewn into the uniform over his left breast pocket. 

"Charge," Gil said. "The clock is running." 

He led the way out the door, cranked the noisy but efficient motor of the 
Volkswagen which sat in buggy, bright red grandeur in the carport. Susan 
came out behind him, patting at her hair. He reached across the car to open 
the door for her. He wasn't smiling. He was, she suspected, thinking of the 
payment which was due on the car. 

"Charge, lover," she said. "Onward! If you're late you can't blame it on 
me." 

I can blame anything I want to on you," he said, grinning. "I'm bigger than 
you." 

She liked to see him smile. She was constantly trying to take his mind off 
the problems which seemed to press down with greater weight every day. Poor 
Gil, just twenty-four, an age when a man should be free to ramble, to see 
some of the world, to experiment and test life and whoop it up, but Gil was 
not free. 

It wasn't Susan's fault he was tied to his business, to the city. She didn't 
think that the mere fact that a man was married should tie him down 
completely, not when he had a wife who was willing to go where he went, 
share whatever came his way. When, late at night or on Sunday afternoon, Gil 
would talk of places he would like to see, she would share his yearning for 
them. She could understand the faraway look in his eyes when an especially 
nice spring or autumn day brought the smell of the sea from the coast over a 
hundred miles away and reminded him of the world out there, the world far 
from the daily grind of operating his television repair shop in the 
outskirts of Orlando. 

Susan could understand Gil's desire to run away from people who drove with 
combative intensity and walked the streets unsmilingly. She, too, got tired 
of seeing people who had nothing to smile about. No, it wasn't her fault. 
She'd go with him. The things she wanted, Gil could give her anywhere. She 
didn't have to have a mortgaged house in a city. She would skimp and save 
and go without a meal now and then, and they could bum around the world on 
tramp steamers or drive the bug up the Florida peninsula, west through the 
Gulf Coast states and then south into Mexico. She would go gladly, but there 
was Gil's mother. The elder Mrs. Emory was strung around Gil's young neck 
like the ancient mariner's albatross. 

Gil's mother, like the mountain, was there. She lived two miles from Gil and 
Susan in a Florida-boom house, built of stucco, grotesque in its poor 
imitation of Latin architecture. 

When it rained, the roof leaked and water discolored the ceiling of the 
living room. Its sole redeeming feature was the fact that mortgage insurance 
had paid for it in full when Gil's father died of a heart attack the year 
Susan and Gil were married, five years ago now. 

For all its faults, old Mrs. Emory loved it. She had been offered a good 
price for it by a businessman who wanted to tear it down and build a modern 
apartment house, but she was adamant. 

She could not be blasted out of it with dynamite, even though it took every 
extra penny Gil could make to keep it from falling apart. 

So it was Mrs. Gilmore Emory, Sr., just past sixty, a pleasant enough woman 
if one overlooked her constant stream-of-consciousness chatter, who was the 
albatross about Gil's neck. Mrs. Emory received sixty-four dollars a month 
from the Veteran's Administration as the surviving widow of a veteran of 
World War One. That sixty-four dollars wasn't enough to buy her groceries, 
for she still cooked as if she were feeding a family. She threw more food in 
the garbage can, Susan thought bitterly, than Susan brought home from the 
store. 

Gil had to make up the deficit in Mrs. Emory's bills, the taxes, which went 
higher each year, the insurance, and the million-and-one odds and ends of 
expense which infest an old house. Gil spent his treasured off-hours mowing 
the lawn at his mother's house, making little emergency repairs on aged 
plumbing, running senseless errands for his mother. 

As a result, the Gil Emory home, a concrete-block development house in one 
of the newer subdivisions, suffered both from a lack of money and a lack of 
time spent on its upkeep. While Mrs. Emory's lawn flourished, close cropped 
and always green from the endless amounts of water she used to irrigate it 
in the dry spells, her son's lawn was sickly, weedy, often in need of 
mowing. 

But she was Gil's mother and he was her only child. 

That morning, traffic on the Orange Blossom Trail was at its worst. Gil 
drove aggressively, snaking the little Volkswagen in and out of traffic 
lanes, using the four-speed transmission to good advantage. The odometer of 
the car showed less than five thousand miles. The new car represented the 
one extravagance of the Gil Emorys' in the past five years. 

Susan watched Gil's face as he drove. She saw the grim lines around his 
eyes, the hard set of his mouth. She hated to see him that way. She hated 
the duty which tied Gil to his mother and bled away the extra money which 
could have bought him a new pair of shoes, a sports-car instead of the 
practical VW, a new suit. Money which could be used to buy nice things for 
their own house, to save for the future, to pay for a baby. 

Wanting a baby was the nearest Susan came to thinking of herself. There were 
many things she would have liked to have, dresses, coats, shoes, but she was 
content. She was happy in her marriage, except when she worried about Gil. 

Of course, the solution was simple. Mrs. Emory had only to sell her house. 
She would have enough money to rent an apartment and live comfortably, 
enough money to last her the rest of her life, and some to spare. Or, Mrs. 
Emory could move in with Gil and Susan. There was about as much chance of 
that happening as there was of having a full blown hurricane coming up the 
Orange Blossom Trail before noon. 

"Please don't forget to send out for lunch," Susan said to her husband. "Do 
you hear me?" 

Gil braked to a stop in front of his repair shop. The shop was in a good 
location. Business was good. It was more man one man could handle without 
working outlandish hours. There was a large, modern shopping center just 
down the road and the spreading housing developments radiated outward for 
miles around. 

"Sure thing," Gil said, bending to kiss Susan on the cheek. 

"That's a kiss?" 

He smacked her quickly on the lips and got out of the car. Someone was 
parked beside the shop, a customer waiting for Gil to open. Gil's day would 
begin with a rush and continue to be hectic as customers demanded one-day 
service on hopelessly battered TV sets. 

Susan watched sadly as Gil hurried across the walk, dug his keys out of his 
pocket and unlocked the door while greeting the waiting customer cheerily. 
Susan slid into the driver's seat and eased the car into the stream of 
traffic. 

It was grocery day. She also had to match buttons and thread to a sample of 
cloth she carried in her purse. She was almost finished making a new dress 
and was eager to apply the finishing touches, to see how it was going to 
look. 

She drove carefully to the shopping center, found a parking place not too 
far from the supermarket and opened the door of the car. As she slid her 
legs out, her tight skirt rode high to show an attractive length of thigh. 

A nice looking man in a white sport shirt let his eyes enjoy the display 
before she jerked her skirt down. The man looked at her and smiled. She knew 
the look well. She got her share of stares from men, a few whistles, too. 

A whistle, Susan thought, could be taken as a compliment. Open looks of 
invitation, such as she got from the man in the white shirt, were not 
exactly complimentary. It was as if all men thought all women were 
promiscuous bitches who had only to be asked. 

She held her head high as she walked coldly past the man. He stopped what he 
was doing, putting parcels into the trunk of a big, new car, and watched her 
as she stilted on high heels over the smooth asphalt of the parking lot 
toward the variety store. She could almost feel his eyes on her as her 
buttocks rippled under her skirt in a provocative way over which she had no 
control. 

In a city where beautiful woman are in abundance, Susan Emory could hold her 
own in any gathering. She was five feet four inches tall. Her stilted heels 
added height and length to her perfect legs. She weighed 120 pounds and the 
right proportions of that weight were in bust and hips. Since she made her 
own clothes, she knew her measurements well-34-24-35. She thought herself a 
bit too hippy, a bit thick in the waist. She would have liked to knock off 
an inch in each dimension, except the bust. Gil liked her breasts. But she 
couldn't lose weight, because she was compacted into her tight-skinned frame 
without an ounce of excess. 

She could not resist a glance at her image as she walked past a plate-glass 
window. She was wearing a neat gray skirt and matching blouse. Her chestnut 
hair was straight, hanging close to her face, flaring attractively at her 
shoulders. Her blue-green eyes were large with a tiny suggestion of tilt at 
the outer corners which she accentuated with make-up. Her mouth was full, 
kissable, expressive, a lush-lined mouth which drew male attention 
immediately. 

She was satisfied with her face and her breasts and her lips because Gil 
liked them. 

In the variety store, she spent a pleasant half hour matching buttons and 
thread to her material sample. Satisfied at last, she paid the cashier and 
walked down the mall to the supermarket. She took her time shopping for 
food, making the trek down each aisle, spending long minutes in front of the 
exotic food counter thinking how pleasant it would be to be able to afford 
to try some of the wild, foreign dishes in her cookbook. However, the 
ingredients were too expensive. 

She settled for such small luxuries as two small tins of smoked oysters to 
be eaten with little crackers and cheese while they watched television. 
Otherwise she filled her basket with staples, good, solid, economical food. 
She bought a healthy amount of good meats, not the most expensive cuts. 
Things like chicken, on which there was a good special, pork chops, which 
were going up, hamburger for meat loaf. 

She prided herself on her ability to choose good meat. She spent ten minutes 
deciding which two pieces of sirloin tip to buy for their weekly blowout. 
That was one thing she was not going to give up, the pleasant Friday night 
dinner when they splurged on good steak and had a bottle of decent wine. 
Mrs. Emory could go to blazes before she'd give up her Friday nights. 

She dropped that line of thinking guiltily. She didn't actually begrudge 
what Gil did for his mother. She hoped that, when and if she had a son, he 
would love her as much as Gil loved his mother. 

There was a line at the checkout counter. It would be a few minutes before 
her turn. Her glance fell on a rack of magazines and books. She studied the 
titles idly. 

"Would you mind holding my place in line for me?" she asked the young mother 
behind her. "I want to get something to read." 

The woman nodded with a frayed smile. Susan walked to the book rack and, 
keeping one eye on the progress of the line at the checkout counter, began 
to scan the books. She decided against the one which had caught her eye. She 
turned her attention to the magazines and examined a line of men's books 
with pretty girls on the covers. One teaser caught her eye: 

WHY MEN SWAP WIVES 

The Inside Story of Today's Free-Loving Marrieds. 

She removed the magazine from the rack, opened it, found the article and 
read the first couple of paragraphs. It was like many she had read along 
similar lines, a rehash of the Kinsey report, not really saying anything, 
merely arousing curiosity through its title. She put the magazine back on 
the rack and checked the progress of the line. There were still several 
baskets ahead of hers. 

The bottom shelf of the newsstand was given over to a tabloid type of 
newspaper with lurid, attention-getting headlines. A dozen different papers 
black-lettered sex and perversion, ax murders and sadism. One headline stood 
out: 

DEN MOTHER TO A PACK OF CUB SCOUTS-BUT WHAT SHE DID WAS HARDLY MOTHERLY! 

She laughed inwardly. It was impossible! She squatted down, smoothing her 
skirt under her buttocks. The story was funnier than the headline. Did 
anyone in his right mind expect people to believe that a 30-year-old woman 
would play house with a whole gaggle of dirty little boys? She'd have to 
tell Gil about it. It was like something out of a risque joke. Why just tell 
Gil about it? It would be more fun to show him. He'd get a charge out of it. 

When it was finally her turn at the cash register, she tried to hide the 
paper under other things, but the checker spread the sheet out in full view 
of everyone. Susan felt a blush creep up her throat. She was relieved when 
the paper went into a bag with groceries. She certainly didn't want people 
thinking that she was accustomed to reading things like that. 

After she had supervised the boy in placing the groceries in the back seat 
of the car, it was still early. She locked the car and walked slowly past 
the store windows, examining the merchandise in the smart shops. She liked 
to study current fashions. It gave her ideas for her own dressmaking. 

It was one of those beautiful days which make the Chamber of Commerce in any 
Florida city smile. It was more like May than December. In the center of the 
mall, a fountain poured forth clear, sparkling water in vigorous streams. At 
night, the jets of water were lit by colored lights. It was very pretty. 

Susan paused in front of a little dress shop and looked wistfully at an 
evening skirt on display. The price tag, she knew, would be far beyond her 
means. Even if she had the money for an evening skirt, she had no place to 
wear it. She and Gil didn't attend any formal affairs. But the clean, simple 
lines of the garment appealed to her. 

It might be fun to make one and use it for a lounging outfit in the evening. 
Very posh, Mrs. Emory, very elegant. She knew she looked her best in simple 
things which clung to her full, good body lines. She imagined herself in the 
skirt with a prim, jeweled shell atop its black simplicity, whirling 
gracefully around a dance floor surrounded by attractive, interesting 
people. 

She let her daydream run to its conclusion, to a loving embrace on a dark 
balcony, a sweet kiss and a man-a man named Gil, of course-whispering in her 
ear. She smiled at herself when her imagination went beyond the kiss, when 
the mental images flowed into the erotic. 

Good God! She was getting downright horny. Have to haul Gil off to bed 
tonight. 

She turned away from the evening skirt and examined the other outfits on 
display in the window. There were some very nice ones, all hopelessly 
expensive. She was glad she could sew. She could make dresses which looked 
as good for a fraction of the price. 

She studied her reflection in the window and was pleased to think that she 
looked quite all right, thank you, in a two-ninety-eight blouse and a home 
made skirt. She was turning away when the door opened and an attractive 
woman smiled at her. 

"Well, hi!" the woman said. "Aren't you even going to come in and say 
hello?" 

The face was familiar. "Oh, no," Susan began. "I'm just-" 

"You don't remember me," the woman said. "I'm Lucia Moreland. We met at a 
party at Jerry Jones' house." 

 CHAPTER TWO 

"Oh, sure," Susan said, slightly embarrassed at having caused the moment of 
awkwardness. "Don't mind me. I don't get turned on in the mornings before 
twelve o'clock. How are you?" 

"I'll give you an injection to help the morning doldrums," Lucia said, 
smiling. "Come in, and let's have a cup of coffee. It's very quiet. I can 
use the company." She was a medium-tall girl, dark, soft-spoken. Her black 
hair was done simply, hanging straight. 

"Oh, no," Susan said, thinking rapidly to arrive at some excuse. She didn't 
know the woman that well. 

"Oh, come on in," Lucia insisted. "Whatever you have to do can wait a few 
minutes while we get acquainted. I've been meaning to call you ever since we 
met." 

There was an almost tangible flow of friendliness emanating from the dark, 
quiet young woman. Susan smiled and walked into the store. Lucia took her 
arm. It was a soft, warm, friendly touch to guide Susan back through the 
neatly arranged racks and tables to a counter at the rear of the attractive 
little shop. 

"You sit there," Lucia said, steering Susan to a modern, low chair, one of 
two facing a marble topped table on which was a fresh vase of flowers. "I 
have the makings under the counter. The water is hot and everything. Cream 
and sugar?" 

"Just cream, thank you," Susan said. 

Lucia poured and mixed instant coffee. Finished, she put the dainty china 
cups and saucers on the marble table top and lowered herself gracefully into 
the other chair. She wore a plain, black sheath with a low neckline which 
showed the upper curves of her large breasts. Her skin was smooth, perfect. 
Her make-up was applied with a light, expert touch to accentuate large brown 
eyes and a generous mouth. She was, Susan decided, a very pretty woman. 

"I like the store," Susan said. "I had no idea you worked here." 

"I just opened up here a few months ago," Lucia said. 

"Is it yours?" Susan asked uncertainly. "I mean do you actually own it?" 

Lucia laughed. "I'm afraid so. It was a bit of a decision, deciding to go 
out on my own. I had to borrow money, and the first few months were death." 

"I should think it would be fun to own a place like this," Susan said. "All 
those beautiful clothes!" 

"It's nice to be able to stock good things," Lucia said. She made a wry 
face. "But then some matronly type with a big belly and a huge bust comes in 
and wants a dress for a girl with a size ten figure. It's a shame. I'm 
thinking of adding a line of good, medium priced dresses." 

"Oh?" Susan asked politely. 

"The young, pretty ones are all just starting a family, or their husbands 
are paying mortgages or something. The girls who look best in my clothes are 
the ones who can't afford them, and those who can afford them are past the 
stage where they can wear them." 

"Really? Is it that bad?" 

"Oh, not really." Lucia laughed. "This is just one of my complaining 
mornings, I guess." She beamed at Susan. "I'm so glad you stopped by. I was 
watching you standing outside, thinking of the things I have that would be 
perfect for you." Penetrating brown eyes swept over Susan's generous bust 
line, her indented waist. "Now if all my customers looked like you-" 

Susan laughed nervously. "I'm afraid I'm one of those who can't quite afford 
it." 

"I have some very good things on sale," Lucia said. 

Susan shifted uncomfortably. She resented being given a sales pitch when she 
had come into the store, on Lucia's insistence, merely for a cup of coffee. 
"No, really," she said. 

"Oh, I'm not trying to push something off on you," Lucia said quickly. "It's 
just that I like to see nice things on girls who can handle them. I'd like 
to show you a couple of outfits for fun, just to see how the designer meant 
them to look on a girl." 

She seemed to be sincere. Susan shrugged. "I warn you I'm the 
sew-at-home-on-a-strict-budget type." 

"Then you might get some good ideas," Lucia said, laughing. She rose with 
cat-like grace and removed a black sheath from a hanger. "Now this," she 
said. "When the designer created it, he had you in mind." 

The dress had simple, close lines and a revealing cutaway in back. "It's 
lovely," Susan said, fingering the material, "but it's too expensive." 

The price tag said $99.95. Susan felt resentment again. It was like dangling 
a piece of steak in the face of a hungry puppy and then telling him he 
couldn't have it. 

"I'd like to see how it looks on you," Lucia said. 

Susan went into the dressing room and slipped into the sheath. It was a 
perfect fit. Her large, firm breasts jutted enticingly as she walked out, 
subconsciously holding herself more erect, knowing that she looked good in 
the dress. 

Lucia was very appreciative. She made a huge fuss over the dress. Then there 
were others, and the next hour was a pleasant, chatty interlude as Susan 
tried on garment after garment. She liked some, disliked others. She wished 
fervently that she could say, 'I'll take this one and this one and this 
one-" 

"You've ruined me!" she gasped at last. She had begun to feel at ease with 
the friendly Lucia. She had decided that she liked her very much. "How can I 
put on my little homemade skirt and my two-ninety-eight blouse and be happy 
now?" 

"Darling," Lucia crooned, "if everyone looked as good in a two-ninety-eight 
blouse and a homemade skirt, the dress people would be out of business." 

"Thank you." Susan was pleased by the compliment. "Flattery will get you 
something, if only a kind word." 

"You're a lovely girl," Lucia said softly, moistening her full lips with her 
pink tongue. The look made Susan feel vaguely uncomfortable. There was 
something familiar about that look, and she couldn't quite place it until 
something tugged at her memory, something someone had said about Lucia at 
the party where they had met. 

"I have one other thing I'd like to show you," Lucia said, turning away into 
a room at the rear of the store. She came out with a black garment protected 
by a plastic covering. She worked the dress out of the covering and held it 
out to Susan. "This is one you just have to try." 

The dress was long and simple. The material was silky and beautiful. "It's 
nice," Susan said. "It's kind of revealing, isn't it?" 

"You haven't noticed the best part," Lucia said. She held the dress up. It 
was cut away in the front. In fact, there was no front. From waist level, 
the dress just wasn't there. 

"Oh!" Susan gasped. "You must wear a shell or a dickie with it." 

"No," Lucia said. "This is it." 

"I've heard of low-cut dresses, but this is silly!" 

"Actually, I bought it as a sort of joke," Lucia said. She laughed low in 
her throat. "It's one of the latest things, the logical follow-up to topless 
bathing suits. It's a topless evening gown. I wouldn't recommend it for 
public wear just yet. I don't think the world is quite ready." 

"No, I don't think so," Susan agreed. 

"But for a quiet evening at home?" Lucia smiled suggestively. 

Susan smiled with Lucia, thinking of what Gil would say if she greeted him 
at the door in a topless dress. 

"Just for fun, let's try it," Lucia said. 

There was a suggestion of feminine conspiracy, enough to engage Susan's 
interest. She went into the dressing room and slipped out of her blouse and 
skirt again. Dressed in bra and briefs, she picked up the dress. 

"It's to be worn without a bra of course," Lucia called from outside the 
curtains of the dressing room. 

Shrugging, Susan discarded her bra. She slipped into the dress. It was a 
good fit. It was tight at the waist and elasticized bands snugged the 
material below her breasts and up her sides as the dress tapered into tiny 
straps over her shoulders. She looked at herself in the mirror. "Wow!" she 
gasped. 

There is nudity, and then there is adorned nudity. A woman completely nude 
may engage in taking a bath, sleeping, sunbathing or making love. For other 
activities, adorned nudity is best, something to hide just enough of a woman 
to make her body seem mysterious. 

This dress was adorned nudity at its best. Her large breasts were bare, but 
the covering effect of the rest of the dress moderated that nudity into 
something very electric. She remembered seeing dresses of its type in art 
books. The women of ancient Crete, tall, bare-breasted love-goddesses, had 
stood proudly with bosoms out-thrust to emphasize their beauty. 

"How does it fit?" Lucia asked from outside the curtains. 

"Fine." 

"Like it?" 

"It's wild," Susan said. "I wouldn't want it for public wear." 

"Come out and let me see." 

"I can't come out there," Susan said. "What if someone came in?" 

"May I come in, then?" 

"Sure." 

Lucia's face appeared between the parted curtains. She let her eyes sweep 
over Susan's perfectly formed, bared breasts. She seemed to be holding her 
breath. 

"You have to take off your briefs, too," Lucia said. 

Susan had been so bemused by her bare breasts that she hadn't noticed the 
diamond cuts below the waist level. White material showed through. 

"I'd really feel nude then," she said, giggling. 

"That's the idea. Let's get the full effect." 

Susan raised the dress carefully, so as not to wrinkle it, slipped down her 
panties, let them drop to her feet, and stepped out of them. The 
perforations of the dress were between her navel and the upper curve of her 
pelvis. Enticing white skin glowed in diamond shapes around her body. 

Through the dress were glimpses of soft stomach, the curve of her hips, the 
hollow at the base of her spine just above the slope of her rump. She felt 
almost naked, yet it made her feel teasingly sexy, pleasantly sensuous. She 
knew by Lucia's admiring looks that she wore the dress well. 

"Not everyone could get away with it," Lucia said, touching her lips with 
the tip of her tongue. She smoothed the dress down over Susan's hips, 
although not a wrinkle marred the silky material. Her palms were flat, 
pressing intimately against Susan's softness. She tugged at the back of the 
dress, going through the motions of arranging the hang of the material. Her 
hands flowed to Susan's front and patted the tightness just below her 
breasts. 

"Most women would sag so badly they couldn't wear it," Lucia said. "But 
you're perfect." Her hands cupped Susan's breasts from below. "Most women 
need the lift of a bra," she said, pushing up gently. "You're very firm." 

Lucia's hands were warm. The touch was just a little too intimate for 
comfort. Susan froze for a moment, feeling embarrassed. Suddenly she 
remembered what it was that had been said about Lucia at the party: 

"My dear, Lucia Moreland is a darling girl, but don't let her get you alone 
in a dark corner." 

It seemed to Susan, in that frozen moment, that Lucia's hands stayed on her 
breasts forever. Actually, the touch was brief and could easily have been 
dismissed as a natural saleswoman's gesture. Then contact was broken, and 
Lucia was bending to tug at the skirt. Susan allowed herself to breathe. 

"It's a damned shame," Lucia said, standing. "You look like ten million 
dollars in that dress. People would scream and snicker if you dared wear 
it." 

"It would have to be worn on a very warm night," Susan said, letting the 
tension ease out of her. It was silly to be suspicious of Lucia just because 
some old biddy wanted to gossip. 

"When I ordered that dress," Lucia said, "I was hoping that some newly 
married girl would see it and want it to surprise her husband. They seem to 
think, the two or three I've shown it to, that they'd rather spend money for 
something to be worn out, instead." 

"Maybe you're barking up the wrong tree," Susan said. "Maybe you should try 
to sell it to a woman who has been married for a while, so she could use it 
to pep up her husband's lagging interest. 

She was sorry as soon as she said it. It sounded like a complaint against 
Gil. She certainly didn't want Lucia to think that she was dissatisfied 
witl, her marriage. 

Lucia tactfully ignored the remark. "I've marked it way down." 

"It would be kind of fun," Susan mused. She liked the startling figure she 
cut in the dress. 

"Would your husband like it?" 

"He'd go ape." She looked at the price tag. Eighty dollars! It would be 
cheaper to buy a couple of fifths. 

"Don't let the price scare you," Lucia said. "I'll admit a trade secret. I 
have about twenty-five dollars in the dress. Why don't you take it for 
twenty?" 

"Twenty?" It was foolish even to consider it. Yet she was sure Gil would get 
a kick out of it. She could imagine his pleased surprise when she came out 
of the bedroom, nearly nude, adorned nudity. But 20 dollars! 

"I'm afraid I couldn't, not right now," she said regretfully. 

"Your husband will never know what he's missing." 

"There are so many things we need," Susan said, arguing with herself against 
the urge to buy the dress, and twenty dollars be damned. "I just can't spend 
the money right now." 

Lucia shrugged. "I feel almost like giving it to you. It's made for you." 

"I couldn't let you do that," Susan said. She slipped out of the dress and 
put on her own clothing. Lucia helped, handing her the skirt and blouse. 
There was that look again. She realized with a shock that Lucia was looking 
at her just as some men looked at her. She wondered if there was, after all, 
a kernel of truth in the statement of that catty woman at the party. 

Dressed, she followed Lucia back to the little marble-topped table. Lucia 
paused, turned, a musing expression on her face. "I have an idea," she said. 
"How would you like a part-time job?" 

"I haven't thought about it," Susan said. 

"I can't afford a girl full time, yet," Lucia said. "And yet there are many 
times when I need someone to help. If you wanted to work on Saturdays and a 
couple of evenings a week-" 

"I really haven't thought about it," Susan repeated. "I'd have to talk to 
Gil." 

"I'd let you have things you wanted out of the store at cost," Lucia said. 
"It would be a wonderful way to build a nice wardrobe." 

Susan considered it. She liked Lucia Moreland. She couldn't believe the 
woman at the party had been right. After all, what proof did she have? A 
look? A casual touch? 

"I'll think it over," Susan said. 

"I'll tell you what," Lucia said eagerly. "You talk it over with your 
husband. Gil, isn't it? In the meantime, why don't you take this dress home 
with you? Show it to him." She smiled suggestively. "When he sees you in 
this, he won't be able to say no to anything." 

"I don't think I should take it home before I decide," Susan said 
doubtfully. "We've talked once before about my taking a job and-" 

"But this won't be like a regular job," Lucia said. "You'll only be working 
Saturdays and a couple of evenings." 

"Well...." 

"If you decide to come to work, fine. If you don't and you don't want to 
keep the dress, you'll at least have had the chance to wear it for one 
evening. Okay?" 

"All right," Susan said, weakening. It was Friday. Friday night was party 
night at the Emory house, a party for two with steaks and wine. She could 
wear a housecoat over the dress until it was time to reveal herself and 
then.... 

Good Lord! She was getting horny. Just the thought sent goose bumps down her 
spine. "Gil Emory" she would say, "you've been neglecting your homework. Get 
with it, boy." 

 CHAPTER THREE 

Susan had a bacon-and-tomato sandwich at the snack shop after leaving 
Lucia's. She hurried the light lunch. She had killed a lot of time since 
buying groceries and didn't want to risk having any of the expensive meat 
spoil from being shut up in the car on a warm, sunny day. When she got home, 
she lugged the heavy sacks of food into the kitchen without thinking 
anything of it. She was a strong, healthy girl and carrying a few bags of 
groceries wouldn't hurt her. 

She put the box with her new dress on top of the refrigerator until she had 
finished putting away the groceries. Finished, she called Gil. As she 
suspected, he had forgotten to send out for lunch. The drive-in up the 
street from the shop delivered. Susan ordered two hamburgers for him and 
then, her mind at ease, went into the bedroom and laid the dress across the 
bed to admire it. 

It was, indeed, nice material. She just had to try it on again. She 
stripped, donned the sexy dress and studied her image in the bedroom mirror. 
She had always been thankful for having nice breasts and a good body, but 
she had never seen herself set off so well. She turned and posed. She 
giggled at herself. If anyone could see her, cavorting around half-nude, 
they'd think she was ready for the booby hatch. 

But what the hell? It wasn't every day a girl had a new dress, especially a 
dress like this. It was a silly luxury, completely useless for public wear, 
an extravagance she tried to justify by telling herself that it would please 
Gil. If it made Gil feel as she felt, wow! 

She felt voluptuous. She felt as if being semi-nude were delightfully 
naughty. She felt, thinking of Gil, a hint of desire. She plotted how she 
would reveal the dress to him. She imagined how he would look at her, how 
his hands would do the first natural thing that occurred to him, how they 
would reach for her readily accessible breasts. She pushed her hands down 
her stomach, flattened them against the smoothness of her loins and, their 
pressure created a hint of languorous passion. 

She willed the day to speed along its way so that she could show Gil the 
dress, so that he would do that natural thing and reach for her breasts and 
... Well, hell, there she went again! But it was nice to think about it. She 
liked thinking about it. It was better than dreaming erotic dreams about 
another man, wasn't it? At least she thought only about the caresses her 
husband gave her. 

It wouldn't do, though, to think about it too much. She tried to think of 
other things during the slow afternoon. She thought about life in general 
and about life with Gil in particular. Gil was a good man, a hard worker. He 
would stay at the shop until the last possible minute, trying to turn out 
just one more job, trying to make that extra dollar. 

This line of thought brought out the hidden streak of resentment in her. She 
considered bitterly how hard Gil worked, how easily his hard-earned dollars 
were spent on the bottomless well of expenses which was his mother's home. 
It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair to Gil and it wasn't fair to her. 

A young married couple should not be saddled with the extra responsibility 
of having to support an additional household. Those income-tax finks had 
actually questioned it when Gil put his mother down as a dependent. He had 
had to fill out a long, complicated form to prove that he actually 
contributed more than half of his mother's support. 

More than half, ha! They allowed him a deduction of $600, the same deduction 
Gil could have taken for a child. And, dammit, she didn't even have a child. 
She wanted kids, had always wanted kids, lots of them. Gil had to support 
his mother and his mother's house, so they couldn't afford kids. 

She always became morose when she thought about having a baby. At such times 
she damned the efficiency of modern birth control methods. If it weren't for 
those damned pills, maybe she could just slip up once or twice, and then 
there would be nothing to do but have the baby. What a sweet thought! But 
she couldn't deliberately forget to take the pills. That would be doing Gil 
dirty. 

It would be very easy to hate old Mrs. Emory. Didn't the woman realize what 
she was doing? Susan was 22. She had friends her own age who had already 
started on a family. One girl Susan had attended school with had three, two 
darling little girls and the meanest, most adorable little boy she'd ever 
seen. Susan smiled fondly as she thought of the little boy. She wondered 
what her first child would be. Twins might even be nice. Twins ran in her 
family. 

Wouldn't it be lovely, she thought, to start one tonight? Uninhibited love 
play carried through to the conclusion intended by nature.... 

Funny, the way she thought about making a baby. It was by far the sexiest 
thing she could think of. It went back to the very first time when, as a 
virgin, she gave herself to Gil. Lord knows, she was excited enough that 
night. She was atrem-ble, weak, hot and cold at the same time, scared, 
expectant, and so damned eager that Gil couldn't believe his luck. 

She had determined in advance, of course, that she was going to let Gil make 
her that night, and she had come prepared. She wore her frilliest bra and 
panties. She was ready and willing, and when Gil started playing around, 
after long, torrid kisses, she wanted it so badly she was almost crying with 
need. And with Gil inside her, after the first shattering pain, she was not 
disappointed in the results. 

A grand and glorious night, and the most glorious moment of all came, with 
Gil pounding down on her in finishing frenzy, with their movements smoothed 
from their initial awkwardness, when she suddenly realized that she had 
forgotten one damned little thing. She had thought about it all day and all 
evening and had prepared herself with careful washings and perfumings-and 
she had forgotten the basic thing. 

She was very, very near when she thought about it. She was panting with her 
first experience of total sex, and her body was burning with rapture, and 
the thrills were coming so thick and fast she could hardly keep from 
screaming aloud in her delight when she thought, Damn! He's not using 
anything! 

She clung to him for a long moment while a shuddering realization of total 
intimacy cascaded through her body, a white hot flash of pure desire that 
made anything she'd felt before seem pallid in comparison. That moment, that 
tiny little moment when she knew she could become pregnant by what she was 
doing, when she realized that there was nothing to stop her from being the 
truly complete woman big with child, was the hottest, most passionate moment 
she had ever known. 

She tore at Gil like a woman possessed, grinding against him, pulling him 
into her with a cosmic force, wanting more, more, wanting him to share her 
moment of complete abandon. 

That was why she had this thing about having a baby. It all went back to 
that first night. Now she tried to tell herself that it was no different, 
but there was not a chance of her having a baby thanks to the modern pills 
and, by God, it did take something out of it. 

Oh well. She was young yet. There was time. She sure wasn't going to ask 
herself to wait until she was thirty or so to have a baby, but there was 
time. Gil didn't like to talk about it. It worried him to think about all 
the expenses of having a baby. When she talked about babies, it made Gil 
irritable. 

He had changed a lot since that first night so long ago. He had changed 
since the Army years. Money was scarce during the Army years, too, and then 
Susan was in agreement about waiting to have a baby, but things were 
different then. Gil didn't know then he was going to learn enough 
electronics in the Army to open up his repair shop. Now that things were 
fairly settled, when it was a logical time to think and plan for a family, 
there was Mrs. Emory, and Gil was always so tired. 

Come to think of it, he did a hell of a lot of television watching and a 
hell of a lot of sleeping. When had that started? When had things reached 
the point where it was more fun, for Gil at least, to sleep or watch 
television than to have a spirited game of mattress polo? 

"Ah, come on, hot-pants," she told herself aloud. 

She couldn't blame Gil. Tension and worry erode desire in a man. 

But she couldn't accept that excuse as a total explanation. When they were 
first married, there had been days when Gil would slip away from his company 
at lunch time, skipping his meal, to come home to her for a quickie, a fast 
and lusty roll in the hay which was very, very good in spite of the lack of 
time to really get the most out of it. 

Then there were the nights and the mornings. Gil was very fast in the 
mornings. In the mornings, she had to work fast to keep up with him. He'd 
awaken, all warm with sleep and with the night-taste in his mouth and she'd 
be awakened by his hand in her gown, playing with her. 

Sometimes she wouldn't even know a thing until she was rocked out of sleep 
by his movements within her, and those were really lovely times, when she 
knew first the deep feeling of being penetrated and she'd come slowly awake 
to find that her body had been functioning in her sleep. 

Then she would have to steam up quickly because he was so fast in the 
mornings and she'd put a little extra effort into it, heaving under him like 
a wild wench, straining to beat him. Her mornings were good, not really 
complete, but good, more like nice preludes to better things ahead. 

She said aloud, "Knock it off, or you'll be doing it with yourself." She 
wasn't reduced to that yet. 

Gil hadn't made love to her in the morning, hadn't sneaked home at lunch, in 
years, but she wasn't reduced to playing with herself! She had a man! 

But she had a man so concerned with his job and money problems that he had 
been neglecting her needs. 

"Don't be an ass," she said, talking aloud again. 

She tried reading but couldn't concentrate. She watched a soap opera on TV. 
One of the characters was pregnant out of wedlock. She smirked. Other people 
got knocked up at the drop of a pair of panties, and she couldn't manage it 
because of modern science and a husband who worried about money. 

She said to hell with it and went into the kitchen. It wasn't time to start 
on the evening meal, but if she went slowly and meticulously she could 
stretch the job of getting ready for the Friday night feast until it was 
time for Gil to come home. If he came home on time.... 

She called him at the shop. "Gil," she said, her voice going soft and warm 
at the sound of him. "Gil, you're not going to work late tonight?" 

"Gee, honey," he said, sounding harried, wanting to get back to his work, 
"I've got jobs stacked up to the ceiling." 

"Sweetie, it's Friday night, don't you remember?' 

"Friday?" he asked absently. Then he added, "Oh, yeah." 

"If you'll close on time and be home early, I'll have a surprise for you," 
she promised. 

"Yeah?" His mind seemed to be elsewhere. "What?" 

When he was in the Army, he worked in Company Headquarters and had access to 
a telephone. When things were slow, he'd call her at home and they'd play 
telephone games, making sexy little remarks, teasing each other until they 
could be together again. 

He sighed. "Look, Suze, I have a customer waiting. See you later?" 

She frowned, disappointed at not being able to play the game. But, after 
all, they weren't newly-weds any longer. "You'll be home on time?" 

"I'll try." 

"Don't just try, buster," she said, letting her beginning anger show. "You 
do it." 

"All right," he said irritably. "All right! Now, if you don't mind, I have a 
customer." 

When they were married, someone gave them two place-settings of good silver. 
It was supposed to form the foundation for a complete set, but somehow they 
could never afford to add to it. She got it out of the drawer, took it out 
of its cloth wrappings and spent a few minutes polishing it. With her good 
china and two of the tall crystal wine glasses, the table looked very chic. 

She put fresh candles in the silver candle holders, also a wedding present, 
and fussed with napkins and arrangements until things were perfect. Then she 
put two medium-sized potatoes into the oven, wrapped in foil. She got out 
the steaks and put meat tenderizer on them. She made the salad-tomatoes, 
lettuce, radishes and tiny bits of apple-and put it into the fridge. 
Allowing an hour for the potatoes, she could put on the steaks at six if Gil 
showed up. 

With nothing to do, she sat down on the kitchen stool and looked out the 
window at the palm tree in the yard. She and Gil had planted the tree when 
they moved into the house. It was growing nicely. 

Across the street, two small boys rode skateboards. She felt the familiar 
ache of wanting when she looked at them. They were about six, she imagined. 
If she had had a boy when she was first married, he'd be only a couple of 
years younger than those two. She stopped herself. No need to go down that 
road again. She watched the second-hand on the kitchen clock. She noticed 
the paper she'd bought at the grocery store and reached for it idly without 
leaving the stool. 

The story of the woman who entertained her cub scout troop in an unusual way 
was as unbelievable on detailed reading as it had been when she scanned the 
headlines. She looked out the window at the two little boys and couldn't 
imagine a woman wanting to do anything to them except mother them. 
Intercourse with one? How silly. She turned to the inside pages of the paper 
and read about an axe murder. She shuddered. 

On page three, an article claiming to be the true confessions of a 
nymphomaniac held her attention for a few minutes. Then she thumbed through 
the pages, her interest flagging, skipping over stories of rape and incest 
and perversion to the inside of the last page. The classified ads caught her 
eye and she scanned the columns. Offered for sale were pictures of nude 
girls, fancy underwear, aids for those who wanted to quit smoking, for those 
who had irregularity, for those who needed trusses. 

Her eyes stopped at a column headed PERSONALS: 

FUN LOVING FLORIDA COUPLE WOULD LIKE TO MEET BROAD-MINDED COUPLES INTERESTED 
IN PHOTOGRAPHY, MODELING, PARTIES. SHE'S A SWINGER, 36-24-36. HE'S 
CONSIDERED HANDSOME. 

And: 

ATTRACTIVE BLONDE, DIVORCEE, HAS SWINGING MALE FRIEND FOR PARTIES WITH 
BROAD-MINDED COUPLES. 

Susan made a wry face and put the paper aside. It was a bunch of nonsense, 
she thought. The article about the woman and the cub scouts implied a lot 
and said little. It was the same with the ads. If they were for real at all, 
the definition of "broadmindedness" would be the exchange of pictures of 
naked girls or something. She couldn't imagine anyone advertising for sex 
partners, not for real. It was just something to make people buy the paper. 
Otherwise it made no sense to her. 

Susan was a one-man woman, pure and simple, not because she had never felt a 
stir of interest for another man, but because she didn't believe in a quick 
roll in the hay, a casual hump in the back seat of a car. She knew the 
difference between sex and love and that was important, but she could not 
separate sex and love. 

She liked her sex, Lord yes, she liked to roll in it, throw herself into it 
body and soul. She liked being used by her man, used well and long until 
every nerve in her body was screaming from the loveliness of being loved. 
She liked to do it again and again.... 

"Whoa, girl!" She laughed. 

Hot pants again, and Gil a full hour away! 

Well, what harm would it do to dream a little? 

 CHAPTER FOUR 

She decided that she would try to remember the best time she had ever had 
with Gil. After reviewing a few incidents which stood out in her memory, she 
arrived at one particular night during the second year of Gil's Army 
service. It was New Year's Eve, and they had partied until late. 
Half-stewed, they went home to the apartment at four o'clock in the morning. 
Neither of them was sleepy. They were keyed up, still slightly boozy. They 
went to bed and made love. It went on and on until she climaxed three, four 
times and Gil was panting like a stallion before he finally made it with a 
burst of pure passion that was so good she could almost feel it now, 
remembering it. It was a lovely time, but it was so long ago. She hadn't had 
one like it since. 

It shocked her to realize that she hadn't been a multiple threat in a long 
time. It seemed, as she thought about it, that lately all Gil did was crawl 
on and get it over with. Just one good one and then, bam, off to sleep. 

She was suddenly concerned. Was she becoming a discontented wife? Was the 
next step to play musical beds with the neighbors? Not a chance. Things 
would be all right if she could have a baby, and she could when-when what? 
When Gil's mother sold her house? Mrs. Emory wasn't going to sell. When Mrs. 
Emory died? She felt guilty. She didn't wish the old woman dead. She didn't 
hate Mrs. Emory. Mrs. Emory was as healthy as a horse, fortunately. She 
should be good for another twenty years, at least. 

Twenty years-yipe! 

Black gloom settled over her. She thought about the years ahead and wished 
that she could foretell what would happen. She thought about growing older 
and not being able to start a family, of seeing Gil age before his time, 
seamed with worry and the extra financial burden he carried. She would not 
let it happen. 

She would start tonight. She'd tell Gil, "I'm going to have a baby." She'd 
say, "Gil, we're going to start a family, and no backtalk. If the choice has 
to be made between a new pair of shoes for junior and a plumbing job on your 
mother's house, then your mother is going to have to learn plumbing. That's 
all, boy." 

That was nutty. Gil wore the pants in the family, thank God! She wouldn't 
have a man who couldn't manage his own wife. 

But hadn't she waited long enough? Wasn't it time to start thinking of 
herself? She was a good wife. She tried to make life good for Gil. Not that 
she was perfect. She had her moods, her black moments when she wasn't fit to 
live with, times when she made it rough on Gil. But she wasn't a bad wife. 
She could be better and she would. She'd love Gil until he screamed for 
mercy. If that's what it was going to take to make up for Gil's lack of 
vigor in bed, she'd be the aggressor. 

She would become a sex kitten. She wouldn't wait for Gil to make the first 
move. If she felt like moving, she'd move. If she could interest him, she 
would be the one who got all the gravy from her new policy. She might be 
able, with some determined sexiness, to talk Gil into letting her go a few 
days without the pills. 

She wondered how long it would take to get pregnant? 

No matter how long it took, it would be fun. 

Just before six she checked the potatoes in the oven. They'd be right in 
another few minutes. She turned on the broiler in the stove to let it heat 
and stood by the window, waiting for the red VW to turn into their street. 
At five past six, impatient, she went to the telephone. Gil was still at the 
shop. 

"Gil," she said plaintively when he answered, "it's after six." 

"Is it? Christ!" He sighed. "I've got to finish this job, honey. I promised 
it for first thing tomorrow morning." 

"Dammit, Gil. I've got dinner almost ready." 

"Well, hold it awhile. Give me thirty minutes." 

In thirty minutes the potatoes would be overdone, tough. "Oh, Gil!" she said 
dispairingly. "Not on Friday night! Can't you leave it?" Her voice softened 
involuntarily. "You know how I look forward to Friday nights." 

"Well, I guess I could come in a half hour early tomorrow." 

"We can go to bed early," Susan said. "I don't promise we'll get to sleep 
early, but we can go to bed early. Now will you please get the hell home?" 

He chuckled. "Okay, babe. See you in ten minutes." 

She wasn't taking any chances. She didn't start the steaks until he drove 
into the drive. Before that, however, she rushed into the bathroom, took a 
quick shower, dried, scented herself with her nicest perfume, the one' she 
saved for special occasions, flipped her hair with a few quick strokes of 
the brush and put on her new, adorningly nude dress. She put her nicest 
housecoat over the black dress and tied it tightly before going back to the 
kitchen. 

Gil drove into the driveway. She met him at the door and lifted her face to 
be kissed. He pecked her on the lips, and she moved close against him, 
asking for more. She pulled his face down and planted her lips on his mouth. 
He tasted good, manly, a sexy taste spiced with cigarettes. 

"What's the big surprise?" He smiled at her. He was almost six feet tall, 
husky. When he wasn't worrying about money he had a young smile. His sandy 
hair was cut short. His face was lean, his nose strong. His grey eyes were 
piercing. She thought he had the look of an eagle about him. She loved him 
without reservation. 

"Don't be impatient," she said, smiling suggestively. "Go get washed. I've 
just put the steaks in." 

"All bears beware," Gil said. "I'm hungry enough to eat one." 

"Hurry then," she said. 

She poured wine into the tall crystal glasses. The color went well with her 
nice table. Then it was time to prepare the big surprise, what she hoped 
would be, for Gil, the main course of the evening-herself. She pulled the 
drawstrings of her housecoat and noticed that she hadn't drawn the drapes in 
the kitchen. 

She closed them, got rid of the housecoat and, with the proud look of a 
beautiful woman who feels confident in her dress, she waited. She lit the 
candles on the table, turned out the overhead lights. She heard Gil coming 
through the house and struck a pose for him, a mischievous smile on her full 
lips. 

It was comical. He walked into the kitchen and said, "Who forgot to pay the 
light bill?" 

Then he glanced at her. She was standing near the table so that she would 
receive the romantic, flattering glow of the flickering candles. He did a 
cartoon type double take, his mouth open. 

"Great bubbling Christ!" he said. 

She moved toward him slowly, her hips swaying, her lips parted, finding it 
difficult to breathe. She wet her lower hp with her tongue. 

"Like it?" she breathed. 

"Great God," he said. "Where's the rest of it?" But he liked it. She could 
tell by his eyes that he liked it. 

"This is the ultimate weapon," she purred. "With it, we women are going to 
conquer the world." She came close to him, thrust her bare breasts against 
his chest. "Or," she said, "we might even succeed in seducing our husbands 
with it." 

He had changed into a short-sleeved sports shirt. When his arms went around 
her, she could feel the firmness of his muscles. She clung to him, full of 
love for him, feeling wanted, tender. 

"Will it work, do you think?" she asked. 

"I wouldn't be surprised." He closed her mouth with his. His hands came up, 
just as she had suspected they would, and closed over her exposed breasts. 
It was a long, lovely, shuddering kiss. She luxuriated in the hardness of 
his body, in his smoothly rippling muscles as he moved to make his embrace a 
living thing. 

She let her hands rove up and down his back, from his flat hips to his 
muscled shoulders. She moved her hips. She pressed harder and harder against 
him until she felt him begin to respond. Finally, she pushed herself away. 

"The steaks," she said, content, now that the fires had been kindled, to let 
them smoulder through the meal, until, later, one touch from him would set 
them blazing. 

"Who cares?" He held onto her, his hands moving down to lift her by the soft 
handles that were her rounded buttocks. 

"Lover," she said. "There's prime beef in the oven." She kissed him quickly, 
moved slowly away, feeling his eyes on her swaying rump as she went to take 
the steaks from the broiler. She served, seated herself. Gil was still 
standing, watching her, his eyes glued to her exposed, pointed breasts. 

"Sit down," she said softly. 

He obeyed. The steak was just right, red in the center, piping hot. At 
first, desire won out over appetite, but after a few bites Susan realized 
that she was hungry and began to enjoy the meal. The wine was good but the 
headiest draft of all came from Gil's eyes as they studied her from across 
the table. 

"That's quite a dress," Gil said, after he, too, had blunted his first 
appetite. "Where did you get the pattern?" 

"I didn't make it." 

"Oh?" 

"Do you remember Lucia Moreland, the dashing brunette at the Jerry Jones 
party?" 

"The hot number?" 

"Is she a hot number?" 

"That's the impression she gives. I didn't do any personal research." 

"I should hope not!" Susan said. "Well, she has a little dress-shop down at 
the plaza." 

"Would it be impolite to ask how much you paid for it?" 

She was off-guard, weakened by the emotions she had experienced, knowing 
that she had made a hit with Gil in the dress, remembering the strength of 
his arms around her. 

"It's a seventy-nine-ninety-five dress," she said, teasing him. 

He looked at her in complete disbelief. 

"It was marked down to twenty dollars," she said, seeing the danger of that 
course. She didn't want to get him sidetracked on money, not with the 
evening opening so perfectly. 

Seventy-nine-ninety-five was such an unthinkable price that it really hadn't 
registered on Gil. He could understand twenty dollars. It just happened that 
twenty dollars was the size of the electricity bill he had paid for his 
mother that very day. Twenty dollars represented two hours of hard work when 
things were going right at the shop, more hours if he ran into problems. The 
insurance was due on his mother's house, and he hadn't paid off the December 
bills for his own home. 

"Twenty dollars?" he asked gruffly. "Great God, Susan, for a thing you can't 
even wear outside of the house?" 

Susan felt her spirits sink a bit. She was not going to let him spoil the 
evening, however. "I haven't bought it yet, Gil." 

"Well, don't." He spoke unnecessarily sharply. 

Tears burned at the back of her eyes. He had liked the dress. He was being 
unreasonable. The dress had sparked fires in both of them. Why did he want 
to spoil everything. It was so nice to be able to look sexy for him. It was 
so nice with his arms around her. She loved the way he had kissed her, the 
way his hands found their way to her bared curves. 

"I'm sorry," he said, but his voice was still hard. "I'd like nothing better 
than to be able to buy you nice things, everything you want, but you know 
how things are." 

"Yes," she said. The steak had lost its flavor. "I damned well know how 
things are. How much money do we intend to hand out to your mother this 
month, Gil?" She was immediately sorry for saying it. However, the damage 
was done. His face hardened. 

"Oh, Gil," she said. "I was going to tell you. I was just having a little 
fun with you. I haven't bought the dress and if I do keep it it won't take a 
penny out of our budget. Lucia wants me to go to work at the store." 

"Damn," he said disgustedly, putting down his fork. 

Well, she thought, this evening is shot to hell. She decided she might as 
well go ahead with it, now that it was started. She had tried being nice and 
it didn't work. 

"I'm going to have this dress, Gil," she said. "And there are a lot of other 
things I want, too. I know how it is with us money-wise, and I understand 
your concern for your mother. I don't really begrudge what we do to help 
her, it's just that I think it's time I began to get a few of the things I'd 
like to have. This job with Lucia will allow me to buy some very nice 
dresses at cost." 

"It doesn't matter how I feel about your going to work?" Gil asked. 

"Yes, it matters," she said. "You matter more than anything to me. You know 
that. But this will be just a part-time job, Saturdays and a couple of 
evenings. We could work it out so that you could do your late work at the 
shop on the evenings when I'm working. You wouldn't even realize I was 
away." 

"Susan," he said, very carefully. "I just don't like the idea of my wife 
working." 

She fought down her growing anger. "Can't you learn to like it?" 

"I see you've made up your mind." 

"Yes," she said simply. If he had not spoiled the evening, if he had 
understood about the dress, she wouldn't have gone against him so strongly. 

"I guess that's it, then." He fell into silence and finished his meal 
quickly. She wasn't hungry any more, but she finished the steak simply 
because they had just one good steak each week, and she would be damned if 
she'd let him spoil that little pleasure for her. But it was spoiled. She 
didn't enjoy the remainder of the meal. 

He was the one who broke the long silence. "Help you wash dishes?" He made 
it clear by the tone of his voice that he didn't want to help. 

"No," she said. "I'll do them. Why don't you take a glass of wine into the 
living room and watch TV?" 

He poured a glass and left her alone in the kitchen. It didn't take long to 
wash the few dishes and the broiler pan from the stove. She cleared things 
away and walked into the living room. Gil looked up from the evening paper. 
She had thrown an apron around the black dress. He grinned at her, then 
laughed. 

"That's pretty funny," he said. 

He looked down. The frilled apron did look silly atop the straight, black 
dress, below her bare breasts. She giggled. 

"It is, isn't it?" 

One nice thing about Gil. They had their little spats, all right, most 
married people did, but with Gil things ended quickly. There was none of 
that silly business of pouting and carrying a grudge for days, not even for 
hours. She tossed the apron aside and sat on the hassock in front of his 
chair. He had not, as she suggested, turned on the television. 

"Gil," she said. 

He looked at her thoughtfully. She had gone to a lot of trouble to make the 
evening interesting for him. She'd outdone herself in arranging the table 
and in preparing the food. She'd gone out of her way to doll herself up in a 
sexy dress for him. 

"Hey," he said. "This is Friday night, remember?" 

"I remember," she said. "I was afraid you'd forgotten." 

"Now, now." He grinned. "No pouting. Let's be pals, okay?" 

Susan smiled. "Suits me, boss. Wanta play games?" 

"Such as?" 

"I could name a few." 

"Well?" 

"Like post office?" she asked. "For children," he said. "Grab ass?' "Don't 
be gross." 

"Nine innings of mattress polo?" He grinned. "You don't play that game in 
innings." 

He reached for her. She went to him and let herself down onto his lap. Her 
hair fell around her face, making an attractive chestnut frame for her full 
lips, her mouth parted slightly. "It's played in falls, like wrestling. I 
promise to lose three out of three falls." 

His lips were firm, gently insistent. His hand went immediately to her 
breast. She felt her nipple harden under his touch. She could also feel, 
with a tightening in her stomach, a growing hardness against the soft bottom 
of her. She squirmed to feel him better. Hot juices roared through her 
system. 

All the frustration, all the pent up desire, grew into an undeniable flood 
of need inside her. 

She wanted him. She sought him with clinging body and soft arms and gusty 
sighs. She felt him with her hand, loving his voluptuous round hardness. She 
wanted him in her. She could not wait. 

She had decided to be more aggressive, hadn't she? 

"Are you going to carry me off to bed or do I just fall down here on the 
grubby old rug?" she asked, her voice throaty. 

"That rug, thank you, is not grubby. My wife keeps a nice house." 

"Don't tease," she said. 

"So fall down on the floor." 

It sounded like a wild idea. The rug was new. It was clean, deep piled. She 
pushed herself backward from his lap before he could catch her, eased 
herself down, pushing the hassock away in a quick movement. She gathered the 
dress in her hands and folded it to her waist. She could feel her glands 
working like mad. He looked down and she raised her hips from the floor, 
pushing herself at him, urging him with all her body to take her. 

 CHAPTER FIVE 

"This is the way you asked for it, lover," she said. She lifted her arms. He 
bent to pick her up, but when he put his hands under her shoulders, she 
tripped him, and he had to catch himself to keep from falling on her. She 
pulled and he came down atop her. She could feel his touch. 

He had landed just right. She reached for him, found him, pulled on his body 
until, with strength born of her wild desires, she had him centered. 

"Hey, let's do away with the clothes," he said, still touching her, wanting 
nothing but one slight thrust to unite them. 

"No!" she gasped. "I want it now!" She pushed upward, impaled herself on 
him, as the first throbs of ecstasy possessed her. She felt joy as he 
matched her movements, welding their bodies together. She felt wanton, let 
pure sensualism take her, felt him possess her completely, thought, oh God! 
how wonderful to be a woman! 

Small, spasmodic muscles clutched at the beloved alien within her. Her 
breath grew fast and hard. She began the climb to heaven, regretting only 
for a moment that his bulky clothing prevented the ultimate in closeness. He 
moved to kiss her open mouth, giving her his tongue to tease. He was 
delighted with her all-out response. 

She cried out once, twice. Then she was slowly tensing, lifting her entire 
body to press hard against him, holding him tight to check his motions. 

"Ah, God!" she gasped. "Ah, Gil!" She made swift little movements to savor 
the delightful after-effects, and then she relaxed against the hard floor. 

"Hot-pants Suzie," Gil said, smiling down at her. 

"You know it, buddy," she said proudly. She felt proud and satisfied. Within 
her, she was carrying his seed. She was so glutted with feeling that she 
didn't consider the fact that his seed would be planted in sterilized 
ground. She felt too good to think about it. 

"You do it to me," she said. "You make me have hot pants." 

"I'd better not catch anyone else doing it," he said. 

"No danger." 

The floor was hard but not uncomfortable. She lay underneath him and felt 
him ebb away from her. 

"You know, darling," she said, her voice soft and languorous, "that you've 
hopelessly wrinkled a twenty dollar dress." 

"I have?" he asked. "Who the hell was it who fell down on the floor and 
started this." 

"I'll have to keep it," she said. 

"Wasn't that what you wanted?" 

She kissed him quickly. "I really wanted to enjoy my husband, that's all I 
wanted." 

"Really?" 

"For real and true." She snuggled her face against his shoulder. "Are you 
glad you have a hot wife?" 

"You know it!" 

"Are you going to take me to bed and do it up right for me?" 

"You know that, too." He eased his weight off her. "But only because it's 
Friday night and you look so sexy in that damned twenty-dollar dress." 

He rolled off her and helped her to her feet. She held the dress away from 
her, not wanting to mess it up. 

"This time I'll take it off," she said. 

"I'll vote for that." 

"Come along," she said. "Follow me, sexman." 

In the bedroom, she pulled the dress off over her head and shook out her 
hair. While Gil undressed, she made quick repairs in the bathroom. When she 
came out, he was lying atop the spread on his back. She liked him nude. He 
had such a good, strong body. 

She threw herself down on him, making him grunt with her weight. She pushed 
herself up quickly, avoiding his arms, straddling him. 

This one was going to be long, loving and slow. She was going to take her 
time, savor every small movement. Afterwards, she'd he under him until sleep 
came, feeling him still within her as the world went away, leaving only love 
and sensuous awareness of Gil. 

It was lovely. So utterly lovely! Nothing could be as good. 

Nothing? Oh, God, how could she be dissatisfied? 

But the truth was that one thing could improve it. 

"Darling," she whispered, not stopping her sinuous, slow gyrations. 
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could start a baby?" 

He paused. "You didn't forget the pill?" 

"No," she said, "but I'd like to. I want a baby, Gil. I want your baby in my 
womb. I want to feel it growing. I want to know you put it there, darling. I 
want your baby. I want that more than I want anything else in this world." 

"I know," he said, taking up the rhythm slowly. 

"Let's do it," she begged. "Can't we, please?" Her words gushed out in tempo 
with her increased movement, as she was excited by the thought. "I can skip 
the pills and then in a couple of days ... It would be about the right time 
of the month, I think. Oh, wouldn't it be nice to know we were making 
something when we do this? To know that we're being as close as two people 
can ever be?" 

"Gil?" she asked, when he didn't answer. 

"Don't, Suze. Please don't." 

"I would like a child. Maybe we could name it after you, if it were a boy, 
and he'd look like you, and when he was big enough you could buy him 
baseballs and things and-" 

"You know how I feel," he said. "You know I want kids. But-" 

"But there's the insurance on your mother's house," she said bitterly. 

"Susan!" 

"All right," she said, squeezing him, "I'm sorry. We won't talk about it." 

But something had gone out of it. 

She let him roll away from her and watched his back disappear into the 
bathroom. She heard water running as he showered. She closed her eyes to try 
to dispell the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Something had gone 
out of her. 

It seemed so ugly, so sterile. It seemed useless, all the motion and the 
wildness and the moistness. It was sinful, almost, to make love just for the 
sake of the transient sensations it produced in her. Her body was incomplete 
again, crying out for the little, impregnating seed which could become, in 
nine months, a tangible proof that love was clean and good. 

When Gil came back to bed, she told herself that she had to get up and go 
clean up. But she didn't really care. Something was gone. She felt used and 
tired. She closed her eyes and turned away from Gil. When he put his arm 
over her, she moved. Her body was sticky with sweat. "Don't, Gil! It's so 
hot." 

He moved his arm and turned onto his side, his back to her. It was not even 
10 o'clock. " 'Night, sweetie," he said. "Goodnight." 

After he began breathing evenly, she was still awake. She lay on her back, 
messy, sticky. Such a waste! It wasn't right. All the loveliness had gone 
out of the night and what had seemed to be beautiful love was represented by 
a sticky, dead, useless residue. They were two animals giving pleasure 
without purpose past mere sentience. 

Was that love? No, that was mere sex, a far cry from what she wanted, what 
she needed. 

She felt very sad. Before she finally dropped off to sleep, her cheeks were 
wet with silent tears. She cried because she was in bed with a stranger. The 
man sleeping at her side, purring softly through his nose, was not her Gil, 
not the vital, young lover she had known. He was a tired man, a distant man, 
interested only in money and in keeping his mother's house from falling down 
from disrepair and old age. 

 CHAPTER SIX 

The sadness was still with Susan when she awakened Saturday morning. She 
rushed into the kitchen to prepare Gil's breakfast. During the night, the 
advance elements of a cold front had moved south to cover the Central 
Florida area. It wasn't cold enough yet to light the oil burner in the hall, 
but the heat from the open oven felt good. Susan wore a battered pair of 
slacks, faded from many washings. She had on a mannish shirt with long 
sleeves and had brushed her hair back and applied lipstick before coming 
into the kitchen. 

Outside, low clouds promised some badly needed rain. The lawn was dry and 
brittle. There was, Susan noticed, a tell-tale brown circle on the side of 
the yard which indicated that the chinch bugs were back. She'd have to 
remind Gil to bring the sprayer from his mother's house and get some good 
bug-killer on the grass before the little devils ate it all. 

She heard Gil rambling around in the back of the house. Water ran. The 
electric razor buzzed. That was her signal to put on the eggs. She wasn't 
hungry. She'd make do with a grapefruit and a piece of toast. It wasn't that 
she had to watch her weight. No matter what she ate, she seemed to stay 
within a few ounces of her regular 120 pounds. 

She didn't feel like having a big breakfast, that was all. The grey day, the 
haunting disease that had begun in the midst of their lovemaking the night 
before, seemed to cast a cloud over her spirits that matched the clouds 
outside. 

Gil came in, fresh in his white uniform. She forced a smile. No need to let 
Gil know she was in a blue funk. He had enough worries without being 
inflicted with a neurotic wife. 

"Get the paper yet?" he asked cheerfully. 

"I didn't think of it." 

"I'll get it." He went out the door, and she looked at him through the 
window. He was straight, tall, handsome. She told herself that she was being 
a fool, that most women would be happy to have a good man like Gil, that her 
troubles, fortunately, were all small ones. 

Gil, unlike some men she knew, wasn't a heavy drinker. He didn't spend his 
evenings "out with the boys" flitting from one bar to the next, getting 
drunk and panting after B-girls. He didn't play around. At least, he didn't 
play around to her knowledge. 

Once, while he was in the Army, she had had suspicions about Gil and the 
wife of a sergeant who lived in the same apartment building with them. She 
never had proof that Gil played footsie with the woman. If he did, he 
handled it discreetly. 

Now, with all of Gil's time spent at the shop and at his mother's house, she 
didn't see how he could ever find the time to go catting, even if he had the 
urge. 

"I thought you'd be wearing the new dress," Gil said lightly as he came back 
into the house unfolding the morning Sentinel. 

"Down boy," Susan said. "That's for special occasions." 

"Maybe we can have a party tonight," Gil said. "Just you and me and a fifth 
of old rotgut." 

"That might be nice," Susan said without enthusiasm. 

"Maybe we can go out on the town. I'd like to see the looks on faces when 
you walked into a joint with that dress on." 

"I'll bet you wouldn't!" Susan said. 

"I'd be the envy of every man in town." 

"You'd have to fight to defend my honor." She served his breakfast and sat 
down. She removed seeds from a runty grapefruit from the tree in the back 
yard. Gil looked up at the sound of a car in the driveway. 

"Company?" he asked. "Search me." 

Sharp heels pounded on the concrete of the carport. There was a light knock 
at the kitchen door. Susan went to open it. Lucia Moreland was there, 
dressed in a well fitting one piece knit dress. She looked very fresh and 
very pretty. 

"Hi!" Lucia said. "Did I get here just in time to interfere with your 
breakfast?" 

Susan brightened in the face of Lucia's cheerfulness. "Not at all," she 
said. "Come in." 

"Who is it, honey?" Gil called, unable to see the door from where he was 
sitting. 

"It's Lucia Moreland," Susan said, as Lucia followed her back into the 
dining area. "You remember her, don't you?" 

"Of course," Gil said, standing up so quickly that he bumped the edge of the 
table and spilled coffee over the lid of his cup into his saucer. "Have you 
had breakfast, Lucia?" 

"Oh, yes," Lucia gushed. "I'm sorry to break in on you like this, but I got 
up this morning and felt so lonely that I asked myself, where can you find a 
good cup of coffee and genial companionship at this hour of the a.m.? And I 
said, to myself, why not bust in on the Emory's?" 

"We're glad you did," Susan said. 

"Sure," Gil seconded. "Don't you want some breakfast?" 

"Oh, no," Lucia said. "Just a cup of coffee if you have it." She put her 
hand on Susan's shoulder and tried to push her down into a chair. "You just 
tell me where things are and I'll serve myself." 

"I'll get it," Susan said. She was watching Gil with some interest. His eyes 
were glued on Lucia. He was still standing. "You'd better finish your 
breakfast, Gil," Susan said. "If you don't, you'll never make it to work a 
half hour early." 

Gil sat down. Susan went into the kitchen with Lucia following. When Gil 
couldn't hear, Lucia whispered, "The real reason I came by was to ask if 
you'd had a chance to talk things over yet, I mean about coming to work." 

Susan nodded grimly. "We've talked." 

"Oh-ho." 

"He doesn't like the idea." 

"That's too bad. I was hoping-" 

"I haven't said no," Susan said quickly. 

"Oh, so it's that way." Lucia smiled knowingly. "Well, if you need some 
help?" 

"Perhaps we'd better let it ride for a day or so." 

"I don't want to push you, Susan, but a girl came to see me yesterday, just 
after you left. She wants to work part time and I do need someone. Don't 
feel that I'm trying to force a decision. If you're reasonably sure you can 
come to work, I can wait a few days." 

Susan made her decision suddenly. "There's no need to wait." She carried 
Lucia's cup and saucer back to the table. 

"Lucia has to know if I'm going to work for her," she told Gil. "She's had 
an application from another girl." 

The smile faded from Gil's face. 

"Susan is perfect for the job," Lucia said, smiling warmly toward Gil. 
"She'll be very decorative and useful. You have a beautiful wife." ' "Yes," 
Gil said. He seemed to be slightly ill at ease under Lucia's gaze. He 
returned her look and smiled. Susan noted that his eyes went down to measure 
the fullness of Lucia's breasts. She remembered Gil had described Lucia as a 
hot number. It would seem that Mr. Gil Emory felt some attraction for Lucia. 

"It isn't as if she would be working at a full-time job," Lucia said. "We'll 
only take her from you on Saturday's and two or three evenings each week." 

Gil looked at Susan. "How about Friday evenings?' 

"I don't know," Susan said. So that was his plan. He was going to make it 
seem as if she were not interested in their little Friday night parties. 

"Friday is, of course, one of our busiest nights," Lucia said. 

"Sometimes it's pretty busy around here," Gil said. 

"Look, kids," Lucia said. "I don't want to stick my nose into the middle of 
your private affairs. I just thought-" 

"Gil," Susan said evenly. "I want to go to work for Lucia." 

Gil smiled, but the smile had a forced quality. "If your going to work means 
we'll be seeing a lot of your boss around here, I'll vote for it." When he 
looked at Lucia there was no trace of shyness. 

Susan felt a little pang of anger. He was trying to make her jealous, 
hinting that if she went to work for Lucia he might find out if Lucia really 
were a hot number. It was the last straw. It was childish, and it made her 
furious. She looked at the dress Lucia wore. On the racks at Lucia's store 
it sold for over a hundred dollars. 

Of course, Lucia looked good. Any woman with a halfway decent figure would 
look good in a dress like that. If that was what Gil liked, she'd by-God 
give it to him. 

"When do you want me to start, Lucia?" Susan asked, looking at Gil, daring 
him to object. 

"Today?" 

"Fine with me." 

"That's wonderful." She turned her smile on Gil. "You're not going to be 
angry with me, are you?" 

"Angry with you?" He made it sound incredible. "What a silly idea!" 

"Now that it's settled," Lucia said, "I'll be running along. See you at the 
shop around nine-thirty, all right, Susan?" 

"I'll be there." 

Lucia rose, took her cup and saucer to the sink and tiptapped out the door. 
When the sound of her car faded, Gil said, "She comes on strong, doesn't 
she? Makes herself right at home." 

"You came on pretty strong yourself," Susan said, still a bit angry. 

"Honey," he grinned, "if my wife is going to be a career girl, I've got to 
have something to help me while away the lonely hours." His smile was 
without warmth. 

"On the wrong track entirely, my friend," Susan said. 

"Oh?" 

"It won't work." 

Gil rose lazily. He moved to the back door. Lucia was in the street, just 
straightening the car to drive away. When Gil called out, she stopped and 
rolled down her window. 

"We're having a little party tonight, just Susan and I. Would you like to 
join us?" Susan thought his voice could be heard all over the neighborhood. 

"I'd love to," Lucia called back. 

"Bring someone if you like," Gil said. 

"I'm fresh out of someones," Lucia said, smiling. "May I still come?" 

"See you about eight," Gil said. He closed the door and looked back at Susan 
defiantly. She felt sick in the pit of her stomach. 

"Do you know what you're doing?" she asked bitterly. 

"What am I doing? What do you mean? I just asked your new boss to visit, 
that's all. You have to be nice to the boss." 

"All right, Gil. Let's be nice to the boss." 

"I thought you might enjoy having her over," Gil said innocently. 

"I'm sure I will," Susan said coldly. "But I'm not so sure you will." She 
was thinking of what the catty woman had said about Lucia. Wouldn't it be a 
big joke on Gil to have him make a huge play for Lucia, for a woman who 
liked girls? 

* * * 

After a bad beginning, the day straightened out when Susan started work at 
the little dress shop. Lucia was bright, cheerful and very helpful. Susan 
was a quick learner. She spent part of the morning getting acquainted with 
the stock. She waited on a couple of young married women at mid-morning all 
alone and made a good sale. Before she realized it, it was lunch time. 

She and Lucia sent out for sandwiches and ate them seated at the little 
marble table. By evening, Susan was handling customers like an old pro. She 
was able to make suggestions and sound authoritative about fashions and 
materials. 

Just before closing time, she sold a very expensive evening gown to a 
well-dressed dowager with a huge, hanging bust and a tightly corseted belly. 
When Lucia closed the doors, she sank wearily down into one of the chairs 
facing the marble table. Lucia came to stand beside her, putting a soft hand 
on her shoulder. 

"Well, how do you like it?" Lucia asked. 

"I thought it was fun, but I didn't realize how tired I was until I sat 
down." 

"You'll get used to it. Today was exceptionally busy. I don't know what I 
would have done without you." 

"I'll be more help from now on," Susan said. "I'm getting the hang of it." 

"Of course you are! You're going to be perfect." Lucia's hand was still on 
Susan's shoulder, kneading her tired tendons. Once again, Susan was reminded 
of the rumor she had heard about Lucia. She looked up into Lucia's face, 
admittedly curious. 

"Now," Lucia said. "I have a reward for a good day's work. I keep martinis 
in the rear of the store. Shall we have one, two, or three?" 

"No more than one," Susan said, smiling. "I'm a cheap drunk." 

"Glad to hear it," Lucia said. "The supply will last longer." She led the 
way into the storeroom at the rear of the shop. During the day, Susan had 
glanced into it. There were racks of garments, packing cases, odds and ends. 
In one cleared corner, there was a small refrigerator, a chair and a neatly 
made three-quarter-size Bed. 

"Put the tired body down, and I'll do the honors," Lucia said. She went to 
the refrigerator, took out two chilled glasses and a shaker. Susan sat on 
the edge of the bed, leaving the chair for Lucia. Lucia handed her the drink 
and stood in front of her. 

"I'll have to hurry," Susan said. "No use pouring fuel on the flames of 
dissension at home. Gil will be there before too long, unless he runs into a 
lot of work at the shop. I should be there when he gets home. I have some 
frozen spaghetti sauce which I've been saving for just such an emergency. It 
won't take me long to get dinner, but I think I should be there just to make 
him feel better, at least on the first night." 

"Drink up, then," Lucia said. She went down beside Susan. Her weight caused 
the mattress to give, and Susan had to hitch herself up to keep from sliding 
against Lucia. The martini was very cold and very strong. It hit the spot 
after the day's work. Susan could feel it bum its way down her throat into 
her stomach. 

"Boy!" she said. "It wouldn't take many of these." 

"My capacity isn't very great, either," Lucia said. "By the way, do you want 
me to come to your place tonight?" 

Susan looked at the dark-haired girl quickly. The tone of the question 
implied there might be a reason why Susan wouldn't want her. 

"Of course," Susan said. 

'I'm not blind, darling," Lucia said. 

"No, I didn't think you could fail to notice." 

"You're not bothered?" 

"Should I be?" 

Lucia laughed, a low, liquid sound deep in her throat. "I don't think so." 
She looked into Susan's eyes. "Not about that." 

Susan wanted, out of curiosity, to find the double meaning behind those 
words. "There is something which should bother me?" 

Lucia touched Susan's leg, high up, near the panty-line. "No, don't mind 
silly me." 

"Do you know," Susan said carefully, looking down at the trimly manicured 
hand which still touched her leg, "that you're constancy touching me?" 

There was a moment of frozen silence. Susan held her breath, wondering if 
she had been too direct. There was a candid relationship already established 
between them. They talked together easily, with no beating around the bush. 
Lucia's reference to Gil's behavior was an example. And Susan felt like 
being direct. She didn't want to go on wondering about Lucia. 

During the day there had been, as she said, a constant series of touches 
from Lucia, a light pat, a stroke on the arm, occasional body contact when 
they were working in close quarters. She hadn't really thought about it 
until now, until she felt the touch of Lucia's soft hand on her leg. At that 
point, suspicion came back. She remembered once again that someone had said, 
"Don't let her get you in a dark corner." 

"Am I?" Lucia removed her hand slowly, her face expressionless. 

"Not that I mind," Susan said, watching Lucia's face closely. "It's 
just...." 

Lucia's hands fluttered. She seemed, for the first time in Susan's 
experience with her, to be ill at ease. "I don't know why," she said. "It's 
just a silly habit, I guess. If it bothers you...." 

"Oh, no," Susan said, distressed to see the self-contained Lucia 
floundering. "I don't know what I was thinking of to make an issue of it." 

Lucia sighed deeply, drawing her shoulders up, letting her chest fall with 
her exhalation. "What have you heard about me, Susan?" 

It was Susan's turn to feel flustered. She didn't want to force Lucia into a 
soul-searching session which might prove embarrassing for both of them. 

She didn't want to do anything to jeopardize the pleasant relationship so 
swiftly built up with her new friend and boss. 

"What do you mean?" she asked, playing for time to gather her thoughts and 
make a graceful exit from the situation. 

Fully recovered, Lucia said, "Let's not kid each other." 

"I'm at a loss," Susan said. 

"All right, let me say it. You've heard, no doubt, that I have unusual 
tastes." 

"Why, no," Susan said, but her blush gave lie to her words. 

"I like you Susan. Do you mind my saying that?" 

"Not at all. I'm pleased. I like you, too-very much." 

"I'm glad. I don't want to do anything to change that. I want us to be good 
friends. If my mauling you bothers you, just yell at me until I remember to 
keep my hands to myself." 

Susan thought she recognized deep pain behind Lucia's words, and her heart 
went out to her. It was she, then, who did the touching. She put a hand on 
Lucia's arm. "I still don't know what you're talking about, Lucia. I assure 
you that I've heard nothing, and if I did, I wouldn't believe it if it were 
bad." 

Lucia sighed again. "No, we'd better cover the ground since we're in this 
deep." She took a deep drink. "I think you're mature enough, Susan, to 
understand that all people are not alike." 

"Of course." 

"Let's go about it this way," Lucia said. "How do you feel about women who 
like other women?" 

Susan's heart skipped a beat. So it was true! Well, it didn't make any 
difference. It didn't make Lucia any less nice, any less friendly. "I don't 
know, really," she said, being very truthful. "I've never thought about it 
much, I guess." 

"You've never been approached by a Les, huh?" 

"No." 

"What would you do if you did run into one, if a Les tried to put the make 
on you?" 

Susan laughed nervously. She had to weigh her answer carefully. She wanted 
to make it clear that she didn't hold it against Lucia if she were that way, 
but she didn't want to encourage anything either. 

"I don't know," she said. 

It was clear now, that what she had heard about Lucia was true. Lucia, 
herself, was telling her about it. She was uncomfortable. Strangely, she 
felt as much discomfort for Lucia as she did for herself. She felt great 
sympathy for Lucia. She wanted to make it sound just right. 

"If she were a nice girl," Susan said, "and I liked her, I might like to see 
how the other half lives." 

Lucia smiled warmly. "Thank you, Susan," she said. "Thank you for being so 
understanding." The smile faded, and she was serious. "But I won't bother 
you. It's not because I have anything against being friendly with someone 
who is working for me, either. It's because I value your friendship so much. 
I wouldn't want to risk losing it." 

"Now it's my turn to thank you" Susan said sincerely. "I feel the same." 

The smile they exchanged was warm and friendly. Both were comfortably silent 
as they finished their drink. 

"Let's have just one more," Lucia suggested. 

Susan felt warm and very close to Lucia. Confidences exchanged had brought 
them nearer. She respected Lucia for being honest with her. She respected 
Lucia for promising not to start anything sexy. 

"I'll have one more," she said, still feeling the warmth of the first 
martini. Drinking on an empty stomach was murder, she knew, but one more 
would hardly hurt her. 

"One up, and then I'll have to go," she said. "Do you have to go home and 
change or something?" 

"Not if you'll let me use a hairbrush," Lucia said. 

"Can do. Then we'll go directly to the house. You can help me with the 
spaghetti. You do like spaghetti, don't you?" 

"Love it." 

The second martini, as always, was better than the first. Susan, in a hurry 
to get home, killed half in seconds. She was studying Lucia out of the 
corner of her eyes. The more she looked at the girl, the prettier she got. 
Susan admired Lucia's perfect face, her large eyes, her beautiful figure. 

For just a second, she let herself wonder how it would feel to have the 
soft, gentle arms of a woman around her. She wondered if it would be vasdy 
different from being held by a man. She had not had much experience, really. 
In all her life she had made love with just one person-one man-Gil. Thinking 
of Gil reminded her of his clumsy attempt to make her jealous of Lucia. She 
laughed aloud. The joke was really on him now. 

"What's so funny?" Lucia asked. 

"I can't tell you." 

"So be that way." 

"It might make you mad." 

"I promise it won't," Lucia said. 

"I was thinking about Gil." She laughed again. "You know, he thinks you're 
one hot number." 

Lucia chuckled. "I see what you mean." 

"Wouldn't the joke really be on him if I...." She paused. Lucia was looking 
at her very strangely. 

"If you what?" Lucia asked. 

"If you and I ... Why was she being coy? "Lucia," she said calmly. "You said 
you wouldn't bother me. What if I want to be bothered?" 

"Would you repeat that, please?" Lucia asked, wrinkling her forehead 
thoughtfully. 

Susan felt daring, sophisticated. She was just teasing, of course. She 
wasn't the type to go for women. She liked to feel that man. 

"What if I want to be bothered?" she repeated. 

"Then, darling, as someone once said in an old movie, you just whistle." 
Lucia spoke softly but with great meaning. "But don't whistle unless you 
mean it, Susan. You'd better mean it or you might get raped." 

Susan faked a wide-eyed, frightened look. "Oooh, how scared I am!" 

They laughed together. Lucia drained her glass and Susan followed suit. 
Lucia rose, smoothing down her skirt. 

"Well," Lucia questioned. "Shall we go?" 

 CHAPTER SEVEN 

"I suppose we should." Susan spoke regretfully. She wasn't in the mood to go 
home to Gil. She was still a bit miffed with her husband. The martinis were 
just beginning to make her feel good, and it was friendly and interesting to 
sit in the storeroom and talk with Lucia. Besides that, there were funny 
litue feelings dancing in her stomach. 

She stood up. Lucia was an inch taller. Susan couldn't explain her sense of 
pleasant expectancy. She had the feeling something was going to happen. She 
felt something should happen. Standing there, looking into Lucia's 
attractive face, her thoughts were confused. She thought of Gil's silly act, 
of his attempt to scare her out of taking the job by making a play for 
Lucia. It would really serve him right if ... If what? 

If she said, "Lucia, I'm whistling?" 

If she felt Lucia's arms go around her, entered a field of experience about 
which she knew absolutely nothing? What kind of a lover would Lucia be? How 
would a girl like that go about it? Oh, she had the picture, the one 
presented in books and magazines, but how would it actually be? 

"Lucia?" she said thoughtfully. 

"Yes?" 

"I might, someday." 

"Might what, Susan?" 

"Whistle." 

"Don't tease," Lucia said. 

"Lucia!" Susan whispered. She puckered her lips. She felt as if she were on 
the brink of a daring adventure. Once before in her life she had felt that 
way, the night when she was seventeen, when she decided to let Gil make love 
to her all the way. 

She felt a delighted trembling inside. Her breath was swift. Her heart 
hammered. She stood, lips puckered, on the brink. Lucia looked at her, 
smiled. Full lips parted, a pink tongue flicked out to moisten the round 
surface of Lucia's lower hp. 

"Damn!" Susan muttered, her lips puckered again. 

"What's wrong?" Lucia asked, moving closer. 

"I can't get the damned things to work," Susan said, little chills chasing 
up and down her spine. T can't whistle." 

"It's the intent that counts," Lucia said, touching her now, her hands on 
Susan's arms. 

"Whistle, whistle, whistle!" Susan said, and then she couldn't talk any more 
because warm, feminine lips were closing on hers, a soft, warm tongue was 
flicking at the outer surface of her lips, edging inside, searching and 
finding sweetness in one continuous movement as their bodies flowed toward 
one another and touched. Two soft globes pressed into Susan's own breasts 
and she could feel, as the embrace went deeper, hips grinding against hers. 

It was happening so quickly. She hadn't really wanted it, hadn't really 
believed it would happen. It seemed strange that things could change so 
swiftly. One moment they were just female friends, talking easily. The next, 
entirely different beings, their relationship changed drastically. 

She knew, now, how female arms felt. They felt soft and protective, not 
muscular. They felt intimate, and they were closed tightly around her, and 
soft hands knew the exact, nice spots on her back and her rump. She was sure 
it would end. She wasn't really letting Lucia suck her tongue into a hot, 
sweet mouth. She wasn't really feeling the hard pelvic bulge grind into her 
own. 

But she was helpless to stop it. She felt herself being pushed back, back, 
felt the edge of the bed against the back of her knees and let herself be 
lowered until she was on her back on the mattress, Lucia bending over her, 
not once having broken the wet, passionate kiss. 

Then she was lying on her side with Lucia facing her. Their bodies stretched 
full length, their long flanks pressed tightly together, their breasts 
mashing each other's with corresponding softness. She could feel the warm 
radiation of nearness. 

There was a small, smacking sound as Lucia broke the first, long kiss. 

"Why?" Lucia whispered. "Curiosity?" 

She could still be completely honest. They were that close. "At first, I 
think." 

"And now?" 

"Ummm!" Susan murmured as soft lips brushed hers. She put her hand behind 
Lucia's head and pulled the dear face to her, opening her mouth hungrily to 
savor the exotic taste of Lucia's lipstick, of her tongue, of her open 
mouth. 

"It's more than curiosity now?" Lucia asked. 

"More than that," she said. 

"What do you want?" Lucia asked. "Do you want me to stop?" 

"I want something," Susan said. "I don't know what to do." 

"I can show you, darling." 

"Do! Please do!" 

Hands worked with her clothing. Blouse buttons opened, exposing a lacy bra. 
The blouse was pulled from the waist of her skirt, pushed up to expose her 
bare midriff. Warm lips, Lucia's lips smeared with lipstick, closed down on 
sensitive stomach skin, kissed and teased and soothed. A warm tongue flicked 
at her in loving abandon. Tender hands raised her shoulders as she 
cooperated eargerly, unfastened the bra and exposed her large, perfect 
breasts. 

"Do you remember the day I touched you there?" Lucia asked, putting her 
hands, gentle and soft, on Susan's breasts. A quiver of excitement went 
through Susan as fingers moved expertly to toy with the rapidly stiffening 
tips. 

"Ummm!" Susan murmured again, not trusting her voice. 

"It was so good," Lucia whispered. "I had to fight myself to stop. Do you 
know that?" 

"Tell me," Susan said, wanting to hear the soft voice. She was lost in the 
strange wonder of her urges. 

"I felt it all the way up to my guts," Lucia said. "I wanted you so 
terribly, so very, very terribly. I didn't dare dream we'd be together like 
this, so soon." 

A gasp of pleased surprise came when Lucia's lips first closed over one of 
her breasts. She arched her torso, heaving her breast up to push hungrily 
into Lucia's mouth. 

"Good?" Lucia asked, pausing. 

"God, yes!" 

The thrills mounted. Her body was crying its need. She felt her hips begin 
to make their demanding, circling, searching motions. Lucia pushed her onto 
her back. She pressed upward, pushing herself against the front of Lucia's 
thigh, loving the contact as she humped her body to feel it. 

"How do you do it, Lucia?" she breathed. She was fully ready, wanting to get 
on with it. She liked the breast-kisses, but she needed something more. 

"There are several ways." 

"Show me. Show me now!" 

Lucia was unbelievably beautiful. Her body was lusher than Susan's, but not 
overly lush. It was full and ripe, and it glowed with health as it was 
exposed with hasty hands. Lucia jerked Susan's skirt and panties away and 
lowered herself, full length, atop her. Her body was soft and warm and 
voluptuous. Susan felt the beautiful pressure deep in quivering softness. 
She used her hips to savor it. 

"This is one way," Lucia said. "Do you like it?" 

"Lovely!" Susan said, opening her mouth wide for a wet, tongue-filled kiss, 
toying with Lucia's lips between her teeth, tasting her sweet feminine 
breath as she allowed her body to rev up into rhythmic motion. She fought 
and lunged and made hard movements to press Lucia closer against her. 

"Play with my breasts," Susan said excitedly. Tender fingers toyed, teased, 
squeezed. "Harder!" 

Sensation approached pain as fingers pinched tender areas. A low moan of 
pleasure came from Susan's lips. 

"You're not close?" Lucia asked. 

"Yes! Oh yes!" Her body strained upward. Lucia stopped her movement. 

"Not yet!" Lucia said. 

"Now!" Susan cried. 

"No. Wait!" 

Lucia pulled away. Where, in Susan's arms, i there had been warm woman, 
there was emptiness, and she opened her eyes in protest. She reached for 
Lucia, but the dark girl was already positioned, looking like a lovely love 
goddess with her breasts pendant, her hair hanging around her face. Susan 
stared, wide-eyed, expectant, as the face neared, touched. Searing wonder 
shot through her body with the hard push of contact. She cried out with the 
goodness of it. 

As the skilled Sappho did things to her, she churned against the loveliness 
and went high, higher, until, with an explosion which, she felt, should have 
been audible, she peaked, climaxed. Thrills shot throughout her body with a 
climax that went on and on under the expert persuasions of Lucia's soft, now 
gentle, touch. 

She was weak. She lay lax, her eyes closed, letting Lucia's lips move slowly 
up her body, feeling the weight of Lucia, turning her head to accept the 
kiss which had a strange, not unpleasant taste of love. 

"How do you feel now?" Lucia asked. "Guilt? Shame?" 

Susan opened her eyes. "Should there be?" 

"There is with many the first time." 

"It was so beautiful, Lucia. How could I feel guilty?" 

"Good!" 

They didn't speak for a long time. "I'm not sure I want to do it again, 
though," Susan said at last. "Why?" 

"Because of what it did to me." 

"What did it do to you?" Lucia asked, smiling down at her. 

"It was so damned good," Susan said, clasping Lucia tighter. "It was so much 
better than anything that's happened to me in a long time. I might get to 
like it too much." 

"Hey!" Lucia said with concern. "That sounds ominous. You haven't got 
problems you'd like to tell me about, have you?" 

Susan shook her head. 

"You said it hadn't happened to you like that in a long time. Isn't your man 
doing his homework?" 

"Oh, sure," Susan said. 

"But not lately?" 

"Oh, look," Susan said. She felt guilty talking about Gil's sexual habits 
with another person. "Let's drop the subject." 

"What's wrong, Susan. Has something gone awry with your marriage?" 

"No. Not really." She smiled, wanting to brush off Lucia's guestions. "It's 
just that-oh hell. I guess the only way to say it is that the honeymoon is 
over." 

"Is that all?" Lucia laughed. "If it's romancing you want, baby...." 

"I don't think that's it, Lucia." 

"I'm the most romantic girl-lover alive." 

"I've been very selfish, I guess," Susan said. 

"Don't think you were leading me on. If that's what's bothering you, forget 
it. If you say you don't want to play again, that's it." 

"You do understand, don't you?" 

"Hell no!" 

"Well," Susan said, "if I did it again, I'd feel it was cheating on Gil, and 
I've never cheated on him." 

"What about this?" 

"No," Susan said. "It wasn't cheating because I didn't know what I was 
getting into. I didn't know how lovely it was going to be. I thought it was 
just some kind of gay-hey, how's that for a play on words?" 

"Don't try to be funny," Lucia said, smiling fondly. "You've got a few years 
to go before you hear all the plays on that word that I've heard." 

"I mean some sort of a fun experiment," Susan went on. "Just something 
between friends, you know?" 

"Just us sweet little girls playing games?" 

"I guess so." 

Lucia smiled. "Sometimes little girls can surprise you." 

"What I mean is, I didn't think it would be so complete," Susan said. "I 
thought it would be a nice little something, kind of like sneaking a couple 
of hard rubs with a soapy washcloth in the bathtub." 

Lucia giggled. "You too?" 

"I thought I'd go home maybe just a little bit twittered from playing games 
with you. I had no idea it was going to send me to the moon. If I did it 
again, knowing what you can do to me, I'd feel guilty, because the feelings 
I had with you are supposed to be Gil's and Gil's alone. Now do you 
understand?" 

"I get the picture," Lucia said. "You're asking me very nicely not to get 
you twittered, as you say." 

"Yes. Can you forgive me?" 

"Well, I know what I'll be missing now," Lucia said. "It won't be easy to 
forget that you're quite a gal, my Susan. I thought I wanted you before, but 
right now what I felt before was just a twinge." 

The pressure of Lucia's arms slowly increased. She rained soft kisses on 
Susan's neck. 

Susan was touched. She was also curious. "But how was it nice for you? I 
mean, I didn't do anything for you." 

"Darling, you'll never know," Lucia said. "That's one thing you never can 
know until you've been there, and I don't think you'll ever make the trip." 

Susan didn't understand. "But did you go? I mean did you reach a climax?" 

"Did I go? Whoo!" She raised her head to grimace at Susan suggestively. 

"When?" Susan was still puzzled. 

"When you went." 

"With me? But how?" 

"I suppose it's some kind of sympathetic reflex or something. I don't know 
how it works, I just know when it works it's really something." 

Lips touched Susan's softly, gently, not demanding at all. It was a sweet 
little kiss, harmless. Susan pursed her lips and answered it. 

The kiss changed, became more than a little touch. Susan turned her head 
away. "We've got to get home to Gil." 

"Maybe he's working late," Lucia said, hopefully. 

"I'd better call him." 

She padded, still nude, to the extension telephone in the storeroom. There 
was no answer at the shop. She dialed her home number and got Gil. She told 
him that she and Lucia were detained at the store, putting up stock. She 
said they'd be along in a few minutes. When she returned, Lucia was pulling 
on her panties. She watched as Lucia's fine, full breasts were covered by 
her bra. Then the knit dress went on with a wiggle of beautifully full hips. 
Susan gathered up her clothing. 

"I'm still curious," she said. "Now you want to ask questions." 

"Yes, may I?" 

"Shoot." 

"Do you like other women to do to you what you did to me?" 

"Now and then, but generally I prefer to be the aggressor." 

"Do you-" Susan began. "Do you...." 

"Do I have many lovers?" Lucia smiled sadly. "No. I'm not really 
promiscuous. I do things in spurts. I go for weeks and weeks without the 
slightest urge and then, suddenly, I'm turned on and I'm a tiger for several 
days." 

"And I've turned you on," Susan said. 

"Yes, darling, but don't fret. I'll be all right." 

"You won't-" 

"Find someone else? Maybe." 

"I don't think I'd like that," Susan said, puzzled by her sudden 
possessiveness for Lucia. 

"That's sweet," Lucia said sincerely. She pulled her dress into place, 
smoothed her skirt. "We'd better be getting home to your Gil." 

"Oh, to hell with him!" Susan said sharply. "Any other night he'd stay at 
that son-of-a-bitch of a store until midnight." 

"Now, now," Lucia said. 

"Oh, I don't really mean it," Susan said. 

"All right, sweetie, up, up and away." Lucia led the way to the mirror in 
the bath, where they repaired the damage to face and lipstick. They left the 
night-lights burning in the store and Lucia locked the door behind them and 
led the way to her car, parked in the alley behind the store. 

 CHAPTER EIGHT 

Gil had brought home a fifth of good bourbon whiskey. He had started on it 
when Susan and Lucia reached the Emory house. He was, Susan could tell, 
beginning to feel his oats. She could recognize the relaxation that comes 
from a good jolt at the end of a work day. He was seated at the table in the 
dining area. When the girls walked in, he got up, handed them two prepared 
drinks. 

"Whiskey and water for Susan," he said. He turned to Lucia. "I figured you 
for whiskey and Seven-Up. Right?" 

"Perfect," Lucia said, giving him her best smile. 

"This is real service," Susan said. "Do you think I should hire this man on 
a permanent basis to serve us drinks when we walk in the door?" 

"This is for a special occasion, lover," Gil said. "I'm merely trying to put 
up a front for our guest." 

"You're doing fine," Lucia said. "Keep up the good work, and I might be so 
impressed with husbands that I'll give up being a gay bachelor girl." She 
winked at Susan over the word gay. 

Susan went to work on dinner. There wasn't really much to do. She took the 
frozen spaghetti sauce from the freezer and put it on low heat to thaw. 
While the sauce was thawing, she readied a fresh batch of spaghetti, made a 
hasty tossed salad and put the plates on the table. She sipped at her drink 
as she worked. 

Gil and Lucia were seated at the table. Gil, having a good head start, was 
at a stage of gaiety Susan knew well. Having had the two stiff ones at the 
store, she was not doing badly herself. She knew she'd have to space her 
next few drinks carefully, or she'd end up being really lit. 

Gil and Lucia talked while she moved around the kitchen, preparing the 
simple meal. Lucia sparkled. Looking at her, seeing the undivided attention 
she gave to Gil, made Susan wonder. However, she rationalized Lucia's making 
a play for Gil by thinking that a girl like Lucia, an acknowledged Lesbian, 
must be under pressure at all times to hide her true nature. 

Lucia, Susan thought, could not afford to have the whole area know that she 
liked girls, so she probably went overboard to make herself seem attracted 
to men. It was, Susan thought, an effective smoke screen. It was far better, 
for a girl in Lucia's position, to be damned as a flirt than as a Lesbian. 

She joined in the talk occasionally. It was light chatter, booze talk, the 
little, unimportant things people say when they're beginning to be looped, 
things that sound, to them, very clever. It was Gil who began telling jokes. 
At first, the jokes were only mildly risque. 

Then, as Lucia and Susan joined in and the supply of "clean" jokes was 
exhausted, the subject matter became less inhibited. There was an 
undercurrent of suggestion to the most innocent remark. Sex, that lively 
subject which heightens almost every party, was referred to slyly at first 
with innocent smiles or knowing accents. 

Gil mixed more drinks. Susan forgot that she was supposed to go easy. She 
was getting lightheaded. She didn't really like to drink too much. She 
always begrudged the waste of a day after having had too much to drink. 
Still, she occasionally went too far and woke up with that blah feeling 
which makes one want to do nothing more than drink ice-water and lounge 
around feeling blue. 

She had finished her second strong drink before the spaghetti sauce began 
bubbling. She went to work on the spaghetti itself and sliced garlic bread, 
buttered it, put it into the oven to warm. 

By the time dinner was on the table she was feeling no pain. Gil had started 
the record player in the living room. It was turned up very loud. 

Susan asked him if he shouldn't turn it down because of the neighbors. 

"Hell, it's only eight o'clock," Gil said. "We'll turn it down at four a.m." 

"Don't wake me when you do," Lucia said. "I'm an early-to-bed girl." 

"Good idea," Gil said. He took Lucia's arm and tugged her toward the door. 
"Good night, Susan," he said. 

It was funny. Susan laughed for two reasons. One, because she felt good and 
laughing came easily. Two, because of poor Gil, all turned on over a woman 
who had no use for men. Let him paw the floor, she thought. Let him pant. 
Fat lot of good it would do him. 

However, there was a hint of resentment toward Gil deep inside her. She had 
never been wild about the sexy little by-play between married couples that 
went on when otherwise sensible people had too much to drink. She didn't 
like to see Gil acting like a stallion in rutting season. It wasn't like him 
at all. 

If he's so damned horny, she thought, why doesn't he use some of that energy 
on me? The logical follow-up was to blame Gil for what had happened with 
Lucia earlier that evening. If Gil had been doing his homework with proper 
en-thusiam, she told herself, she wouldn't have sacked out in a 
three-quarter-size bed with a pretty Lesbian. 

She caught herself with a start. There was somewhat of a revelation 
contained in her thoughts. So, she told herself grimly, you do feel guilty. 

Well, hell! she told herself. It wasn't right, what I did. It wasn't normal. 
It was fun. It was very interesting, but I didn't have to do it, and I don't 
think I'd do it again if I had it to do over. It wasn't really necessary. 

At heart, she decided, she was somewhat of a prude. Or was it that she was, 
after all, faintly jealous of the way Gil looked at Lucia? Not that she 
blamed him. Looking at Lucia was a pleasure. You'd never guess, from her 
fresh, wholesome look, that only a couple of hours before she'd been nude in 
bed with another woman. Lucia was hanging on Gil's every word, encouraging 
him to be more witty, more wild in his double entendres. 

"All right, kiddies," Susan said, putting the bread on the table and sitting 
down, "know this. It's time to knock off the horseplay and feed the hungry 
bods." 

"Who's hungry?" Gil asked. 

"For food, that is," Lucia said, smiling sweetly at him. 

"Honey," Gil said to Susan a bit later, after they were all seated, "Lucia 
is playing footsie with me under the table." 

"Behave, Lucia!" Susan said. 

They thought it was funny. They laughed like crazy. They were so silly about 
it that Susan couldn't help laughing too. She leaned down quickly and looked 
under the table. Lucia had kicked off her shoes. She was rubbing both feet 
on Gil's leg. Susan rapped Lucia's leg with the handle of a knife. Lucia 
yelped and jerked her feet back. 

"Caught in the act!" Lucia giggled. 

"Where did you get the idea that I'm a foot man?" Gil wanted to know. He 
raised his hand and pinched Lucia through the open back of the chair. "I'm a 
fanny man, myself." 

"Hey you two," Susan said. "Eat!" 

"I beg your pardon," Gil said loftily. "Do we know that woman?" 

"Not in the slightest," Lucia said. "Ignore her." 

Lucia was pretty well potted, Susan noted. Her dark eyes were squinted, her 
hair was f ailing down over her forehead. She ate slowly and carefully, 
making a production of each bite. She looked very sexy. Susan caught herself 
remembering the wild abandon of their session in the storeroom. She shut off 
the thought guiltily and looked at Gil. He, too, was more than mildly 
looped. Susan served coffee and insisted that they drink a cup. She had one 
herself. 

The sobering effect of the food and the coffee was counteracted by a very 
strong drink for each of them when they finished eating. The fifth was more 
than half empty. Gil looked at it for a long time and announced that he was 
going to the store for reinforcements. 

"We have plenty," Susan said. "Unless you want to get bombed out of your 
gourd." 

"Why not?" Lucia beamed happily at Susan. 

"She's some kind of party-pooper fink," Gil said. 

"All right, all right," Susan said. "If you want a head tomorrow, go get 
some reinforcements." 

"I need company for the long, snaky trip," Gil said, standing in the door. 

I'm going to wash the dishes," Susan announced. "If we're going to get 
blasted, I don't want to have to face dirty dishes tomorrow." 

"I'll help," Lucia said. She wobbled to the sink. 

"No," Susan told her. "Just sit down and keep me company." 

"I insist," Lucia said. "I'll wash. You dry and put away since you know 
where things go." 

"I need company," Gil said. "I might get lost." 

"We'll send out scouts," Susan said. "Now shoo." 

"Lucia, come along," Gil said. 

"Oh, no, you don't!" Susan said, laughing. "I don't have enough scouts to 
find both of you." 

"Either Lucia goes or I pout," Gil said, sticking out his lower lip. Lucia 
thought it was very funny. Susan laughed. 

"All right," she said. "Take off, both of you. Just don't forget where you 
live, lover." 

"I'll keep him straight," Lucia promised. 

"Who's going to keep you straight?" Gil asked. 

Susan watched the car back from the driveway and then she started the 
dishes. She glanced at her watch. The liquor store was five minutes away. 
Five there, five inside, five back. They should be back in a quarter hour. 

They were not. She finished the dishes, dried them, put them away, tidied up 
the kitchen, and it was only then that she thought to look at her watch 
again. A half hour had passed. She swept the floor, although it really 
didn't need it, and sat down with the remains of her last drink and a 
cigarette. Fifteen minutes later, she heard the car in the drive. She saw 
the glow of the car's lights go out and then there was a considerable wait, 
three or four minutes, perhaps, before she heard a door slam, heard them 
coming into the kitchen. 

"Honey," Gil started as he came in the door with a fresh bottle in his hand, 
"you'll never believe it. I got lost. I got lost right in my own back yard. 
If Lucia hadn't been along to guide me and give me aid and comfort I'd still 
be out there somewhere, searching, searching for home and loved ones and the 
fire of the hearth." 

"Your lipstick is smeared," Susan said. She couldn't decide whether to be 
angry. 

"Blood," Gil said, wiping the tell-tale smear with the back of his hand. 

Lucia came in. Her hair had fallen more around her face. She used her hand 
to push it away. 

"You've got a tiger here," she said. 

"That's funny," Susan said. "I always thought his growl was worse than his 
bite." 

"Arrrrrrg!" Gil growled, putting his arm around Lucia, trying to bite her 
ear. 

"All right, Tarzan," Susan said, deciding to be slightly amused. "Slow down. 
That's my boss you're trying to eat." 

No, she wouldn't be angry. She couldn't understand what had come over Gil, 
being so open with his flirting with Lucia, walking into the house with 
Lucia's lipstick a blatant testimonial to the fact that he had kissed Lucia 
at least once, probably more than once to judge by the size and extent of 
the smear. If he were still trying to make her jealous so that she would 
quit her new job he was on the wrong track. She wasn't about to give in 
under pressure. 

She was free, white and twenty-two, and wives were no longer slaves to the 
home and the man of the house. If she wanted to work, she would, by God, 
work. If Gil wanted to make an ass of himself over Lucia, fine! If Lucia 
wanted to play along with him, that was fine, too! Fat lot of good it would 
do both of them! She, Susan, herself, had what Lucia wanted, and what Gil 
wanted, Lucia didn't give a damn about. 

Drinks. Music. Gil seemed to settle down slightly. In the living room, he 
sat next to Susan on the couch and used his hands in little caresses. He was 
feeling very amorous. She supposed because he was so stirred up by his 
flirtation with Lucia. It wouldn't be the first time a hubby got the hots 
over some woman and then brought his energy to bed with his wife. That 
seemed to be the direction in which the evening was going. Well, it wasn't 
such a bad deal for wifey. 

She smiled to herself. Let someone else do the stirring up, then grab all 
the gravy. She belted her drink, in the mood for a party, happy, 
lightheaded, gay. There was one helluva fine bossa nova number on the record 
player. She swung her foot in time with the beat and hummed. She had kicked 
her shoes away, as had Lucia, and was barefoot. 

"Hey, man," she said. "That's dancing music!" Gil got to his feet, swayed, 
pulled her up. He didn't do the bossa nova very well, but neither did she. 
Gil tried to go into a clutch, and she had to hold him off. Damn, he was 
feeling amorous. 

"You're not keeping the beat," Lucia told them. 

"What are you," Gil asked, 'some kind of a critic fink?" 

"What I am," Lucia said, "is probably the foremost bossa nova dancer in all 
of Florida." 

"Yeah, yeah!" Susan said. 

Lucia came out of her chair and fell into the rhythm of the dance, moving 
alone, all grace, all sensuous flowing hips. Gil and Susan stopped dancing 
and leaned on each other to watch. 

"Not bad," Gil said. 

"Not bad? Hell, it's terrific and you know it!" Lucia moved toward them, her 
hips swaying, her fingers snapping the beat. 

"So show me," Gil said, leaving Susan. 

Lucia said, "I'll show Susan." She led. Her arm was pressed lightly around 
Susan's waist, guiding. There was no hint of sexiness in it. It was only 
when Gil broke in that old mother sex began to make herself felt. At first, 
Gil concentrated on trying to keep in step with Lucia, then he went into a 
clinch. 

"Dancing," he announced, "begins to lose its purpose when it gets too 
complicated. Dancing is just huggin' set to music." 

"Absolutely not," Lucia said. "Dancing is dancing, and huggin' is huggin'. 
You can't do both at once. You can't do justice to either." 

"We can fix that," Gil said happily, pulling Lucia tightly against him. He 
grinned over Lucia's shoulder at Susan. 

"Maybe you'd better concentrate on dancing," Susan said. She felt good. 
Having decided not to be upset by Gil's play for Lucia, she didn't mind his 
horsing around. Let him get himself riled up something fierce, then she'd 
take him to bed and work it all out of him. 

Lucia jerked away from Gil. "He's wrong, you know, about not being able to 
dance and hug at the same time." 

"You said that," Gil objected. 

Susan giggled at their confusion. "You're both blotto." 

"You said," Lucia told Gil, standing very straight with apparent effort, her 
head drooping slightly, her lips parted and lush, "that you can't do both at 
once." 

"You said that," Gil repeated. 

"And I can prove it," Lucia said. "Susan, can I borrow this lout for a 
minute?" 

"He's yours," Susan said giddily. 

Lucia wrapped herself around Gil in a sensuous embrace. She held herself 
high with her arms locked around his neck. She flattened her breasts against 
his chest. She stretched her body, putting her weight on her arms, leaning 
in toward him with her back bowed. She ground against him. 

The slow, rhythmic beat came from the music. Lucia moved with it, her feet 
not leaving their original points on the floor, her hips marking time, 
grinding, moving, her whole body stretched and pressed against Gil as she 
made erotic, wild movements against him. It seemed to Susan that Gil's eyes 
actually glazed. 

He glanced at her over Lucia's shoulder and grinned, a silly look on his 
face. He seemed to be asking Susan, what do I do now, coach? Lucia put her 
face against Gil's neck. Her eyes were closed, her body undulating, her hips 
grinding in small circles. She seemed to be trying to crawl between Gil's 
legs. It was very interesting. 

Susan, sitting down on the couch watching, her legs folded under her, 
wondered what Lucia was feeling. She knew what she felt when she danced with 
Gil that way. She felt him begin to stir and she felt like being taken. But 
Lucia? Lucia was just playing a game! 

At that, it made an interesting picture. Susan watched as their bodies 
pushed hard, trying to make the contact more intimate. They made a nice 
couple. The problem was, Lucia didn't care for men. Poor Gil. All the 
promise of that warm body in his arms and it wouldn't do him a bit of good. 
Of course, he must be enjoying himself. He had that silly grin on his face 
and Lucia knew what she was doing. 

She was putting on a good act. Susan wondered if Lucia were secretly 
revolted by the close contact with a man. She saw Gil's hands lower 
themselves on Lucia's back and clasp her rounded buttocks to lift her even 
higher. It was time to do something, Susan decided. She had to rescue two 
fairly nice people from themselves, to deliver Lucia from an intolerable 
situation and free Gil from an attraction which could only lead to 
frustration. She rose and pulled on their shoulders. They came apart 
reluctantly. 

"My turn," Susan said. "I don't dig this wallflower bit." 

"Who are you cutting in on," Lucia asked, "me or Gil?" 

"Thursday is my day for girls," Susan said. "This is Saturday." 

 CHAPTER NINE 

Gil took her into his arms and enclosed her in a strong band of muscles, 
pressing against her. He was excited. 

"Hummm!" she said, wiggling against him to let him know she noticed. 

"Hummm, indeed!" he said. 

Lucia went down the hall toward the bathroom. 

"She comes on strong," Gil said. 

"Watch it, lover." 

"Jealous?" 

"Of Lucia?" 

"Can you think of anyone better to be jealous of? She turns me on, you 
know." 

Susan laughed. "All right, if you want me to be, I'll be jealous." 

"You don't think the old dog has it in him," Gil said. 

"Lover, I know you have. What you have in you I'm fully capable of taking 
care of, how about that?" 

"Is that an order?" 

"Is what an order?" she asked. 

"Telling me to save myself for you." 

Susan decided to humor him. "You're still bigger than I am," she said. She 
recognized a note of belligerence in Gil's voice. No need to get him riled 
up that way, too, to force him into proving to himself that he was captain 
of that ship. 

"Smart girl," he said. 

There was his readiness against her. She knew it well. She felt him push 
into the softness of her stomach and she wanted him, her body responding to 
his stimulus. She tiptoed, raised herself, leaned her torso backward. She 
remembered how Lucia had looked in the same position and got a voyeuristic 
thrill. Lordy! she thought, how can I be horny after this afternoon! 

But when she heard Lucia come back into the room she made no attempt to free 
herself from Gil's embrace. She moved, swaying, grinding, making only a 
slight pretext of keeping time with the music. Actually, she was only 
vaguely aware of the music. She was more aware of Gil her man, of loving the 
deep, passionate embrace, knowing tiny thrills, wanting those small 
emanations from her sensitive regions to be heightened into the lovely, 
continuous roaring need which ended in heaven. 

"Cut!" Lucia said, pulling on her shoulder. 

"He's mine," Susan said. "Go marry your own man." 

"Don't fight, girls," Gil said, the idiot-grin back on his face. "There's 
enough for all." 

"Ho-ho!" Susan said. 

"Ho-ho!" Gil repeated. He spread his legs wide, struck a pose. "And now, 
ladies and gentlemen," he sang out, "the Third Wonder of the World, Gilmore 
H. Emory, will perform a daring feat! He will dance, he will romance, he 
will enchant, both at the same time yet, two of the world's most beautiful 
women." 

He grabbed both of them. Susan struggled only briefly. She was pressed hard 
against one of Gil's outspread legs. Beside her, in the circle of Gil's 
arms, was Lucia. Gil pushed them around roughly, positioning them. His arms 
held them close. Lucia giggled uncontrollably. Susan saw the humor in the 
situation. Gil got her in the right position. She was pressed against his 
leg, his leg between hers, her long flank tight against Lucia's. Now Gil was 
pushing and tugging at Lucia with his other arm. 

Susan watched, fascinated, as Lucia let her legs part slightly, leaned 
inward to press against Gil's thigh. Lucia was no longer laughing. She moved 
as Susan watched, grinding against Gil's thigh. 

"Now this is living!" Gil said smugly. "Those Sheiks of Araby know what 
they're doing." He kissed Susan lightly on the cheek. "The secret is to keep 
harmony in the harem. You do that with impartiality." He kissed Lucia on the 
cheek. "You don't neglect one beautiful slave for another." 

It was silly. They were all skunk-drunk. But there was that awareness. Gil's 
hard thigh was pressed against her in a strategic spot. She let Gil kiss 
her, then watched as he kissed Lucia. She could see their mouths come 
together. She was very close to them. She had an impulse, which she stifled, 
to join the kiss, insert her own mouth there to make it a three-way meeting. 

She saw Lucia's lips part just at the moment of touching, saw Gil's tongue 
extend, and then their mouths were tightly pressed together. She saw Lucia's 
eyes roll and close. Lucia's lashes were very long. They looked very pretty 
lying along her upper cheek. Lucia moved her head, making the kiss an active 
thing. Susan saw her sag against Gil as if her knees had gone weak. She was 
making small circles with her hips, small movements with her legs parted, 
pressed into Gil's leg. 

"Hey!" Susan said softly. She was surprised at the huskiness in her voice. 

"I'm not forgetting you darling," Gil said, coming back to her lips. There 
was a swirl of dizziness. She knew she was looped. She knew she was becoming 
very excited. Yet it couldn't go on much longer. They would get rid of 
Lucia.... 

But she was docile as Gil led them to the couch. He positioned them on each 
side of him, possessively, strangely sure of himself. He leaned on Susan for 
a deep, all-consuming kiss. She felt his demanding, felt his male urging, 
felt her knees grow weak and tiny waves of desire begin to flow through her. 

When he kissed Lucia with the same demanding force, she found herself 
leaning toward them, drawn strangely to the heat of their embrace, looking 
at their meshed lips, watching the movements of their bodies as they 
strained for more contact. Gil's hand came up slowly to clutch one of 
Lucia's large breasts and she held her breath. Now it would surely end. 

She knew the thrill of that touch, the man touch, but Lucia? The woman who 
liked girls would stop it now. That, she told herself, was why she had let 
it go this far. It was only a silly, drunken game with only one possible 
ending because of Lucia's nature. Lucia would stop it. 

Lucia's hand came up, closed over Gil's hand on her breast and pushed. Lucia 
didn't pull on the hand. Gil's lips sealed Lucia's, then Gil was back with 
her and her surprise was drowned in the pleasure of having her own breast 
handled lovingly. She went soaring on sensation into the realm of passion 
where nothing mattered. 

She couldn't believe it was happening. She knew it had to stop. She let it 
go because it felt so good, because it was very sexy to watch Gil do the 
same things to Lucia that he was doing to her. When Gil turned to face them, 
kneeling on the couch between them and alternated kisses on their upturned 
faces, she accepted the kisses and watched avidly as Gil kissed Lucia. 

When Gil put one hand on her breast, the other on Lucia's, she took a deep 
breath and felt the thrill of Gil's experienced manipulations. When his hand 
went to her knee, he began to work slowly past soft inner thigh. 

She remembered, looked quickly at Lucia, and saw Gil's other hand hidden 
under the folds of Lucia's dress. Lucia's skirt was high, showing lots of 
thigh. She, too, was giving him access. 

She felt Gil's fingers begin to explore, to press under the tight nylon. He 
was watching them closely, his eyes squinted, the idiot-grin no longer on 
his face. Instead, there was the look of fierce desire Susan knew so well. 

He stopped his caress. Susan, eyes closed momentarily, waited for him to 
begin again. Instead, she was lifted in one quick movement as Gil stripped 
her panties away expertly. She sat up with'a jerk. But in the same quick 
movement, without protest from Lucia, Gil took her panties, and there were 
two small heaps of white on the rug. 

Gil put his hands, both of them, under Lucia's skirt before one hand came to 
her, and she felt Lucia was leaning back, lips parted, her eyes closed. 
There was a half-smile of dreamy rapture on her face. 

"Lucia!" Susan said. "Let's you and I go powder our nose." 

Gil pushed her back. "No!" he said, trying to keep it light. "You're under 
my power." 

But the moments of lightness were past. His effort fell short, smothered by 
the aura of passion that seemed to fill the room. 

"Back in a minute," Susan said with determination. "Lucia?" 

Lucia sighed and rose reluctantly. Susan led the way into the bathroom and 
turned to face Lucia. "This is about to get out of hand," she said. "Gil 
will start wanting to complete the job soon." 

"Sorry," Lucia said. "I guess I got carried away." 

"I don't understand," Susan said. 

It happened so quickly that she couldn't stop it. Lucia gathered her into 
her arms and kissed her, soft lips pushing, urging. 

"Lucia!" Susan half wailed. 

She had broken off a pretty nice thing there, had pulled herself away from 
Gil's caresses because she thought Lucia needed to be rescued, and now Lucia 
was making love to her. For a moment, she enjoyed the kiss, then she pushed 
herself away. 

"If you want to stop the whole thing, just say the word," Lucia said. 

"But don't you like-don't you want it to stop?" 

"Who, me?" Lucia grinned maliciously. "But don't-" 

"I like girls. I also like some men, and your man is quite a guy. I can go 
two ways with him." She kissed Susan again. "With you, doll." 

That sweet, all-consuming kiss, twin mounds pressed warmly into her own, a 
feeling of almost painful desire and delicious weakness. It was wrong, the 
way she felt. It might even be evil, but it was so damned good that she let 
the kiss go on and on. She felt Lucia's hands touch the rounded curves of 
her rump, let herself be lifted into the loving position where nothing 
mattered but the demands of her body. 

"Just say the word," Lucia said, turning her loose suddenly. 

Susan fell back weakly, catching herself on the sink. 

"I'm suddenly at a loss for words," Susan said, committing herself, telling 
herself that she wouldn't do a thing to stop it. If it came to that, it 
would be the doings of Gil and Lucia. She'd just be along for the ride. "I'm 
speechless," she added. 

"Sure?" 

Susan closed her eyes, asking for one more kiss. It was good. 

Lucia stepped into the hall. "Gil?" she called. She reached for Susan's hand 
and squeezed it. "Gil, can you come back here for a moment?" 

"What's wrong?" Gil asked, wobbling through the hall door. "Someone fall 
in?" The three of them stood in the hall, directly in front of the open door 
to one of the spare bedrooms, the one with a large double bed made with 
fresh linens and a smooth, silky spread. 

"Susan and I thought we'd be more comfortable in the bedroom," Lucia said. 

Gil looked at Susan questioningly. She smiled weakly. He took her other 
hand. "All in favor of comfort, say aye." 

No one spoke. Gil ushered them into the room, eased Susan down onto the bed. 
She lay on her back, one arm under her head, watched as Gil took Lucia into 
his arms and, from the other side of the bed, eased her down, kissing her, 
to he beside Susan. 

He crawled between them. His hands moved on their bodies. His kisses 
alternated until Susan's last reservations were dissolved in a torrent of 
lust, until her body sang a song of thrills to his every touch, and her 
excitement was raised to a peak as she watched Gil make love to the 
beautiful Lucia. 

When he removed Lucia's dress, Susan held her breath. She wore only her lacy 
bra, panties already gone, left behind on the living room floor. Once again, 
as the bra went, Susan was struck by the sheer beauty of Lucia's body. Gil, 
she could tell, was not disappointed. 

Lucia helped undress Susan. Then, together, they stripped Gil. 

"All right, girls," he said in a choked voice. "Who's on first?" 

Susan's breath caught. She wanted him and yet, with that almost unnatural, 
erotic stimulation high in her, she wanted to see him with Lucia first, to 
be able to watch, to drink in all the intimate details of an act she had 
never before witnessed. 

"All right." Gil looked at Lucia's bared body hungrily. He pushed her back 
quickly. Susan sat up to see better. Her breath was rapid. There was nothing 
evil about it. She had been wrong. It was exciting to watch them lunge at 
each other. She went gladly to join them when Lucia called for her. She was 
wildly excited again. She was kissing Lucia when she felt her go stiff and 
knew with a wild pounding of her heart, that Lucia, now, was experiencing 
the little totality of climax. 

Finally they sat, nude, on the bed. Gil had gone to the kitchen for drinks. 
They were laughing, not talking about what had happened, merely hinting at 
it. It was as if they were all a bit ashamed of it, now that the surges of 
lust were quiet. Susan tried to forget the small hurt she had felt when Gil 
chose Lucia for his final partner, rather than the familiar body of his 
wife. 

After all, she had participated in the act. She had given it her blessing. 
It was, after all, better than having Gil leave home to experience another 
woman. She told herself she wasn't hurt, that no one was hurt by the affair. 
They were all adults. It wouldn't make any difference in their lives. It was 
just a brief, exciting interlude which had been, she thought, good for them 
all. 

 CHAPTER TEN 

For a few days it seemed as if Susan had actually received an unexpected 
bonus from the three-way adventure with Lucia Moreland. Gil, stimulated by 
the affair, was very amorous. The nights around the Emory house were quite 
interesting for Susan. Gil was so much like old times that Susan began to 
wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to seek some sort of outside 
stimulation every time their marriage began to go a bit flat in the bed 
department. 

Then Gil had to go to the bank and borrow two hundred dollars to pay the 
taxes on his mother's house, and he was once again the old Gil, harried, 
worried, working late at the store. 

Susan worked two evenings that week in Lucia's store. She was relieved to 
find that Lucia was not the sort who wanted to talk about the party. When 
Susan thought about the things that had happened, she got a little sick to 
the stomach. She didn't suffer from guilt or curse herself. There was just 
the little sick feeling when she remembered. 

Lucia acted as if nothing had happened. She would touch Susan in that warm, 
friendly way of hers but she did not make any overt moves toward anything 
sexual. 

The Friday-night steak-party came. Dinner was late because Susan had to stay 
at the store until closing time, but it was enjoyable, nevertheless. It was 
nice to get back into familiar routine with just her and Gil at the table, 
making conversation in a relaxed way. 

The weekend began with a long Saturday at the store for Susan, and then 
there was a quiet Sunday. Gil worked the crossword puzzles and Susan scanned 
the paper from cover to cover, and there was a ballgame on TV to while away 
the afternoon. Susan, rested by the long, easy, loafing day, thought it 
would be nice to get into bed early for a bit of marital exercise. She 
suggested it. 

It turned out to be a dismal flop. Gil wasn't really with her. His thoughts 
were a million miles away. Susan could almost see the worrisome dollar signs 
before his eyes. He was thinking about the shop, instead of about her. His 
love-making was weak, uninteresting. Susan felt almost cheated. 

She found herself thinking seriously about Gil and herself the next day. 
After he went to work and she had done her work, she sat at the dining-room 
table with coffee and looked at the wall and thought, where are we going? 
Five years of marriage was only a beginning. She wanted to be able to 
celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary by getting mildly potted and taking 
her husband to bed. What would they be like in twenty years? Already, clouds 
were appearing on the horizon of their marriage. 

She decided to be completely impartial and analyze the situation. 

First, there was the worry of having to support Gil's mother and her house. 
This could be faced, although it had a direct and unfortunate bearing on her 
desires to have a child. So, her big complaint was that their marriage was 
not allowed to follow the natural course, the course which began with the 
birth of a baby and went on from there until they had the house as full of 
kids as they wanted it. 

That, really, was the whole situation. Oh, she had some mild complaints 
about the sex life of the modern American housewife, namely herself.... 

Could it be that she thought too much about bed? 

Well, what else was there? If you can't have a baby or redo the living room 
or take a trip ... The whole world was orientated around sex. All you had to 
do was pick up a newspaper, read a magazine, turn on the television, listen 
to the lyrics of the so-called music so popular with the kids. 

Sex, sex, sex-it was used to peddle everything from automobiles to pills for 
constipation. The whole world told women to be sexy. Girls started dating at 
the age of 12 and got knocked up at 13 and no one seemed to be too upset 
about it. 

Everyone, she thought, worships the great god, sex. Men slave to make money 
for sex, to be able to buy the prettiest woman, whether she be wife or just 
a one-hundred buck whore. Little girls were brought up to be good mothers, 
good, dutiful wives, but what was the first duty any wife was asked to 
perform? The classic position, flat on her young back, acquiescent and 
receptive. 

Was she, herself, dotty about sex? 

She hadn't always been. She didn't start dating until she was 15, wasn't 
allowed to date a boy in a car until she was 16. Other girls in her classes 
had steady boyfriends and were making it when she was allowed only to go to 
parties, then only when one set of parents picked her up and her own parents 
came to get her when the party ended at an early hour. 

Her home wasn't a fanatically religious one, but she went to church almost 
every Sunday. There was a lot of good, plain, decent morality in her home. 
Her mother and father were happily married, easy together, happy with each 
other to this very day. She would have bet her last pair of nylons that her 
mother would have tackled a brace of tigers before she would have jumped 
into bed with a Lesbian, much less with a Lesbian and her husband. 

She was confused. It was a little late to begin feeling guilty about the 
Lucia affair. That was over and done. She wasn't hurt. A bath the next 
morning, a complete rinse, inside and out, and she was like new. Gil, too. 

But that was the modern way of thinking about it. Wash away the traces, and 
it didn't happen. 

It was also very modern to think that she had been rewarded by Gil's new 
interest in sex, brought about, no doubt, by his stimulating evening with 
Lucia. But that was a bit sick, wasn't it? At any rate, it didn't last. Take 
that bit last night. They hadn't really shared the love-act. They were two 
separate people using each other's bodies for self gratification. She wasn't 
even sure that Gil had enjoyed it much. 

Perhaps the trouble was with her. Was she unexciting to Gil? Without undue 
egotism, she rejected that. Men looked at her and liked her. She wasn't bad 
at all. 

Why, then, was the honeymoon over? Why wasn't there a glow of warmth where 
there had once been bonfires? How could she help them regain that young zest 
which used to make their nights pleasant and exciting? 

She could try harder. She had to admit that she, herself, wasn't as fiery as 
she had been. There had been a time in her life when just a look from Gil 
would start her steaming. Now she sometimes approached the sex-act with cold 
deliberation, doing it only because she knew, once it was begun, that it 
would be good, beginning it without the compulsion she had once known. It 
was fine once it was started, except for the vague feeling that she was 
using nature's gift for a cold selfish purpose. Sometimes Gil would say, 
"Hey, wanta do it tonight?" 

And she'd say, "Yes, it might be nice." 

It was crude. It was wrong, somehow. 

Perhaps after two people lived with each other for a long time there was 
need for outside stimulation. Gil's fire and eagerness after the three-way 
party seemed to support that contention. But the stimulation hadn't lasted 
more than three days, and then things were back to normal. 

Would they have to enter into a sex adventure once a week to keep themselves 
interested? And why worry about being interested? Why not just let nature 
take its course. If they both wanted sex, why not take it. If not, let it 
ride. Why was sex so important? 

Because there was nothing else. 

She was enough of a prude to rebel at that idea. She didn't like to think 
herself a slave to sex. She didn't like to think of doing the things they 
had done with Lucia. She didn't want to have to use outside erotic 
stimulation to make Gil want her. She wanted him to want her for herself, 
herself alone. 

But, she thought, let's not blame it all on Gil. After all, she had been 
thoroughly stimulated herself. She had never been so wildly excited in her 
life. She had let herself go that night, for sure. Once with Lucia in the 
storeroom, twice on the bed. She had acted the part of the libertine very 
well. 

There must be something to think about other than sex, she told herself. She 
poured herself another cup of coffee and thought about financial problems. 
She thought about Gil's mother and her house and the never-ending bills, the 
continuous drain. 

From there, it was logical to go once again to Gil's refusal to let her have 
a baby and she was back where she had begun, with sex. Thinking about having 
a baby made her hope once again that perhaps the act would not be so 
meaningless, so purely pleasure-seeking, if it were being used for the 
purpose nature intended, that of making a baby. 

She could think of nothing more wildly exciting than to be able to open 
herself, really open herself to Gil, and let Gil really have her, seep into 
her, seed her. That would be true togetherness. 

Damn, damn, damn Gil and damn his mother! 

Time and time again she had to remind herself that it wasn't Gil's fault. 
Actually, she was just overemphasizing sex again. She was letting sex be the 
dominant factor in her life when it shouldn't be. She would work toward more 
togetherness in a living way, a non-sexual way. She'd try to build the 
marriage in other ways. 

They could live a good life. She would forget sex. She damned sure wouldn't 
ask Gil to take her to bed. She'd wait until he was ready and, perhaps, by 
letting him choose the times, he'd be restored, vigorous, aroused fully. 

She tried it. She waited and waited. She tried to be sweet and very 
considerate, and she couldn't see any change. Things were not bad. They just 
didn't change. The days went by, and her naturally passionate nature began 
to make itself felt. She became resentful when Gil kissed her goodnight in a 
matter-of-fact way and turned over to go to sleep. She found herself 
snapping at him for no important reason, and he snapped back. 

All right, dammit, she had tried. What was she supposed to be, a nun? She 
caught herself thinking erotically of the affair with Lucia. She tried to 
suppress die thoughts, but they were too stimulating. It was easy to 
remember the bliss of Lucia's lovemaking. The temptation to whistle for 
Lucia again was very great. She almost did, one evening when they had closed 
the store. She wanted, more than anything in the world, to go into Lucia's 
arms. 

She decided, compelling herself to be strong, that forcing Gil to go to bed 
with her would be the lesser of two evils. At least, she would be keeping 
her desire at home. She didn't want to start the fires burning with Lucia 
again. She didn't want the guilt feelings nor the complications. 

She went home that night determined to vent her pent-up need on Gil, and she 
found that she didn't have to make the first move after all. The foundation 
of a game of mattress polo had been laid for her by the tabloid paper which 
she had bought at the supermarket days ago. She had never shown it to Gil. 
She had pushed it into the drawer with her cookbook and forgotten it. Gil 
was seated at the dining-area table when she came in, reading the paper. 
"Hi, honey," she said. 

"Pretty spicy reading material you've been hiding around the kitchen," Gil 
said, grinning at her over the top of the paper. 

"I wasn't hiding it," she said, resenting the accusation. "I bought it and 
forgot all about it. I brought it home for you." 

"For me?" 

"I thought you'd get a laugh out of it," Susan said. "That big story on the 
front page, especially." 

"You think it's funny?" 

"Yes." 

"You mean funny ha ha as opposed to funny peculiar." 

"Funny ha ha," Susan said. "I'll bet they made it up. Can you imagine a 
grown woman doing those things with little boys?" 

"She was one sexy bitch." 

"I think she was one crazy bitch if she really did those things." 

Gil lowered the paper. "Seems pretty sexy to me," he said. "I can just 
imagine that girl's pants sizzling. She must have been really stirred up. I 
get quite a mental picture, just imagining how they must have looked." 

"I get sick," Susan said. 

"That's because the average, normal woman can't really understand a truly 
sexy woman," Gil said lightly. 

It hit her squarely in the seat of her frustrations. "What? What did you 
say?" 

"What I mean," Gil said, "is that you're a normal, healthy woman. You don't 
let sex become a big thing with you." 

"You're implying that I'm not a very sensual woman?" Susan said. 

"I don't mean that at all." 

"Well, what do you mean?" 

"I mean that there are people in the world who are a little nutty on the 
subject of sex, that's all. This old gal in the story, for example. I'd like 
to have been there when she got that case of hot-pants. She wouldn't have 
needed a bunch of Cub Scouts, you can bet that." 

Swift anger sent the blood to Susan's face. Here she was, about to perish 
from need for him, and he was telling her she wasn't really sexy. He was 
saying that he could be excited by a slut of a woman who did things with 
little boys, but that he wasn't very worked up over little, normal Susan. 

"Does that type of woman appeal to you?" she asked, keeping her voice low 
with effort. 

"There's something about a promiscuous woman which brings out the beast in a 
man, I guess. They're like a bitch-dog in heat. They put out something which 
appeals to men the way the scent of a bitch attracts old stud-dogs. A truly 
wild woman makes a man feel his oats." 

"Do you put Lucia in that class?" Susan asked. 

"No, not really. She's a hot number, though. I'd guess she's pretty careful 
about whom she plays around with because she's a level-headed girl. A real 
nymph doesn't care about anything except getting it." 

Susan felt as if she had been rejected, in a way, by the man she loved. She 
was hard hit. Something, however, drove her on. Coming on top of all that 
had happened, the lapse into immorality with Lucia and the three-way party, 
coming after her agonizing self-appraisal and her unsuccessful decision to 
make sex less important in her life, the realization that Gil was more 
excited by the thought of a slut than by her was a blow. 

There was, in the male animal, a strangeness she had never been able to 
understand. A male can be excited by pictures, by simple, arty shots of a 
nude woman. A male can be excited by smutty stories. A male can be excited 
by so many things that have little or no effect on a woman. 

She wasn't ready to accept the fact that the story of a middle-aged 
nymphomaniac taking on a Cub Scout troop could excite her husband when the 
clean, willing body of his not unattractive wife could not. 

"But Lucia excites you," Susan said, trying to understand. 

"She did a fine job one night, didn't she?" Gil chuckled. 

Susan smiled disarmingly. She had to know more about his thinking. "Would 
you like to do that again?" 

"I don't know, honey. Would you?" 

"It was more your party than mine," Susan said. "After all, you had two 
women." 

"You didn't do badly," Gil said, acting as if it were all one huge joke. 
"You should have seen yourself go into orbit when Lucia was working on you." 

Just how far had he grown away from her? "Was it exciting for you when she 
was making love to me?" she asked. "It was interesting." 

"You could have joined us," she said, leading him on. "How?" 

"Well, when she was kneeling over me you could have come up behind her 
and...." She made a suggestive motion with her hands. 

Gil licked his lips thoughtfully. Susan studied his face as she continued 
talking. "Just think. Lucia's nice, full body and you taking her while she 
was doing me." 

Gil laughed, somewhat nervously, Susan thought. He rose from the chair. She 
saw with grim satisfaction that he was aroused. She was sickened. She evaded 
his grasp at first, but he caught her and pulled her to him. She could feel 
his apparent readiness. 

When she was only a child her mother caught her watching two dogs coupling 
on the lawn. Her mother's shocked, angry words had made an impression on 
her. She had been sent into the house as if she had been doing something 
wrong, when all she was doing was watching something she had never seen 
before. It made her feel dirty and shameful. 

Now she knew that feeling again, knowing that her husband had been 
stimulated by the story about a woman who did things with little boys. She 
resented being made to feel that way. Sex shouldn't be dirty. Sex was a 
clean, healthy game to be enjoyed by married people. Gil had no right to 
dirty it. She tried to escape, but he held her. He was pressing against her 
hard, demanding her surrender with his lips. 

Finally she relaxed and accepted his kiss. She didn't return it, but he 
persisted. His tongue tried to arouse her, and when he lowered his hands and 
lifted her into place by the round, smooth handles which were the curves of 
her rump, she knew that she was going to be responsive. The awareness was 
there. There were strong indications that the wild storm of passion would be 
set into motion quickly. 

"I've got to fix dinner," she said when he broke the kiss for a moment. 

"Not now!" His lips brushing her ear, sending shivers running down her neck. 

"You need food after a long day's work." 

"We'll send out for a pizza later," Gil said. "Or maybe I'll just make you 
my dinner." 

Well, it was nice. It was fine, very fine, to feel his passion, to know that 
he wanted her, wanted her badly enough to forget dinner. She let her body 
flow inward to curl against his, to feel his hard chest pressed against her 
breasts. 

She gave herself to him, accepting the fact that erotic stimuli, not her own 
body, herself, had aroused him. She followed him eagerly to the bedroom and 
undressed swiftly. 

It was one of those lovely times when two persons seem to melt together and 
become one entity, when two bodies weld themselves with such heat that 
nothing, it seems, will ever make them two again. Soul-love poured out of 
her, responding to the stimulus of body-love, and she felt that her great 
well of love could not help but be shared by Gil. 

Then Gil blew the entire, beautiful moment. 

"Let's have Lucia over Saturday night," he said. 

"What?" she gasped. 

"Let's have a party with Lucia again." 

"Oh, Gil!" It was horrible. He had destroyed all that beauty with the 
revelation that he had not even been thinking about her. He'd been thinking 
about Lucia! 

"What's wrong?" He slowed his movements. "Are you trying to tell me you 
didn't enjoy it with Lucia?" 

"Let's-don't-talk," she said, fighting to regain the reality. She wanted to 
return quickly to nirvana. 

"It makes me sexy to talk about it," Gil said. 

The damage was done. There was passion left. She couldn't be brought to a 
physical peak and then have it die entirely. But the sheer loveliness was 
gone. Now it was mere mechanical, physical satisfaction. She continued her 
motion. 

"Why do you like to talk about it?" she asked. 

"It was kind of exciting, don't you think?" 

"Yes, it was," she admitted. 

"It was damned exciting," Gil said. "And the best part of it, I think, was 
when she went with you. Man, you were hot." 

"Yes, I guess I was." 

"You guess?" He chuckled. "Hell, you were sizzling." 

She finished unexpectedly. One moment she was striving for it with 
mechanical determination, lunging into his body, then it was there. One 
moment she was reaching, the next she was gasping, mouthing his lips 
hungrily while it pounded inside of her. It was good and powerful, but it 
wasn't complete. It was just release. 

"Hey!" Gil said. 

"It was a quickie," she told him. 

"Sneak up on you?" 

"Yes." 

"You don't mind if I continue?" 

"Silly," she said. She made it good for him. He went on and on and, try as 
she might, she could not recreate any interest. She begrudged the waste. Any 
other time, she would have been happy that he took so long. Any other time, 
she would have gone twice, but now she was dead inside. Everything about it 
had lost interest. She didn't have time, then, to think about it. She was 
too busy making it good for him. 

"Wouldn't you like to do it again with Lucia?" Gil asked. 

"Tes." That was what he wanted her to say. "Really?" His movements were more 
firm. He was near the verge. "I'd like it." 

"Saturday night," Gil said. "We'll have a party and...." 

He told her what they would do. He put it in basic language. His movements 
were wild. He was making himself passionate by thinking of Lucia. 

Well, damn it, if that was the way he wanted it.... 

"We'll all get naked," she began. "You can take me and then her." 

It was working. She made her voice soft and sensual. And, as she whispered 
the words to him, she felt his hard-driving body tense. It was like beating 
herself with a whip. It hurt. She went on, driven by some perverse wish to 
feel the full extent of Gil's treachery. 

He climaxed. Then he sighed, made little after-movements, kissed her hard, 
then softly let his weight down on her, breathing hard. 

After a long time he said, "Do you really want to, Susan?" 

She knew what he meant. She had hoped that he was merely carried away during 
the heat of the sex act, that he would forget about it when the act, itself, 
was over, when he was sated. But he still wanted to talk about another party 
with Lucia. He wanted Lucia. He didn't want his wife. He had used his wife's 
body, just now, as a mere substitute for Lucia. 

"If you do," she said wearily. 

"I guess I do," he said. "Not as much as I wanted to a few minutes ago, but 
it might be fun to do it once more." 

"Just once more?" 

"I don't know." 

Hurt and anger were strong in her. "I know something that might be even more 
fun," she said. 

"What's that?" 

She eased herself out from under him. She went, nude and angry enough not to 
worry about being seen through the kitchen windows, to grab the tabloid 
paper. On the way back to the bedroom, she folded the paper to expose the 
classified-ads pages. 

"This might be more fun," she said, thrusting the paper into Gil's hands, 
pointing to the first ad in the personals column. 

Gil read it aloud: "Fun loving Florida couple would like to meet broadminded 
couples interested in swinging parties. She's a swinger, thirty-six 
twenty-four thirty-six. He's considered handsome." Gil looked up at Susan. 
'Tor Christ's sake!" he said. 

"Well, do you expect to have all the fun?" She smiled at him, hiding the 
anger and hurt. "What do you think I am, some kind of queer? If we're going 
to have sex-parties, I'd like a more interesting partner. Lucia doesn't have 
the right body appendage for me." 

"But this is an open invitation to swap wives," Gil said in disbelief. 

"That's the way I read it," Susan said, getting some satisfaction from his 
shock. 

"Dammit, Susan!" 

"What's wrong, lover? I shared you, didn't I? You had your fun. Why can't I 
have some fun too, if we're going in for that sort of thing in a big way?" 

She had won. She felt it. That, she thought grimly, hiding her true feelings 
behind an innocent smile, should stop the fun and games for a while. She 
wasn't going to let him know how she really felt. She would never tell him 
that going to bed with another man was the least of her ambitions. 

Gil covered his confusion by reading the ad again. He was frowning. "This 
can't be for real," he said. 

"How do you know?" 

"Hell, why would anyone have to advertise?" He put the paper down. "Boy, 
what a blackmail situation this would be! You couldn't tell what kind of a 
nut would answer an ad like this." 

"I suppose there are ways," Susan said. "I would imagine that there'd be 
preliminary letters and exchanges of pictures and then a meeting somewhere." 

"I'll bet the editors of this paper just put in these ads to attract 
attention," Gil said. 

"Could be," Susan said. She felt her victory slipping away with Gil's rising 
doubts about the authenticity of the ad. "Wanta try it and find out?" She 
moved to the dresser and began to apply cold cream to her face, getting 
ready for bed, forgetting, in her agitation, that it was early and that she 
hadn't fed Gil. 

"What are you doing?" Gil asked. 

"The usual maintenance work." 

"It's a little early, isn't it?" 

She remembered. "Hoo, boy!" she said. I'll bet you're hungry." 

"Any stray bears better watch out," Gil said. 

He sounded so natural saying that! She smiled at him. Perhaps she had made 
her point. Perhaps now they could work toward healing the small breach 
between them. 

She didn't think any more about the paper. The last time she saw it, it was 
on the bed. She went ahead of Gil into the kitchen and prepared his meal. 
She felt sure that her suggestion she take on a man had stopped all Gil's 
thoughts about further sex-adventures. Gil wasn't abnormally jealous, but 
she knew from past experience that he was a typical enough man to think his 
wife was his own private property. She had, she thought, won an important 
victory. 

So it seemed for the next few days. Gil didn't mention Lucia. When mutual 
desire put them into bed, he performed very creditably without once 
mentioning Lucia. In general, life in the Emory house returned to normal. 
She worked two evenings plus Saturday, and Gil put in a lot of extra hours 
at the shop. They had dinner with Gil's mother, and Susan listened patiently 
as the older woman complained about being alone with such a large house to 
keep. Susan suggested, for the 100th time, that Mrs. Emory sell the house 
and move in with them. Mrs. Emory made agitated talk about not being able to 
bear the thought of leaving her home. Susan told herself that, mother or no, 
she would wait no longer than one more year to start a family. 

 CHAPTER ELEVEN 

Things ran along smoothly enough. As the days went by, Susan seemed to 
forget the events of the past weeks. When she did think about them, she 
couldn't even remember how it felt to be in Lucia's arms. The details of the 
orgiastic scene in their bedroom were blotted out by the sameness of the 
passing days. But, in blue moments, she admitted that nothing had changed. 
Gil was still Gil. She still didn't have a baby. The money problems were 
unaltered. 

She did her housework with the usual efficiency. She enjoyed her hours at 
the store in Lucia's company. There seemed to exist an unspoken agreement 
with Lucia. They simply didn't mention sex. 

Susan was so confident things were under control fhat she invited Lucia for 
dinner. She refused, however, to drink heavily, and Gil and Lucia, their 
spirits dampened by Susan's abstinence, didn't drink much either. The 
evening passed without complications. They listened to records, discussed 
general subjects and Lucia went home just past eleven. 

Susan thought the evening went well. It was as if the three of them were 
saying, by their restrained actions, "Well, we've had our little adventure, 
let's not complicate things any more." 

Susan agonized with Gil over his tax return. They filed early, borrowing 
money from the bank to pay the tax. Gil had just finished paying off the 
$200 he borrowed to pay the assessment on his mother's house. Susan kept 
telling herself that the situation was fine-that things couldn't help but 
improve. 

Soon they'd be able to start a family, buy some new furniture. She was 
reasonably happy. She didn't have all the things she wanted, but she wasn't 
in dire need of anything. She used her small salary at the store to buy two 
new outfits, one of which as a real knockout, one very practical. 

She was completely unprepared for the night when Gil came home early with a 
large manila envelope in his hand. She met him at the door, as usual. She 
kissed him, as usual. He went through the kitchen, as usual, and came back 
to sit down at the table while she finished dinner. Then things stopped 
being usual. 

"Hey, cat!" Gil said, as she was washing pans prior to putting the food on 
the table. She always washed her pots and pans before eating, so as not to 
have so many dishes to wash afterwards. 

"Ummm," she answered. 

"Come here. Take a look at this." 

He pulled papers from the manila envelope. One was a picture. It was an 
eight-by-ten glossy of professional quality, high in contrast, good in 
shadow. It was a good picture of an attractive blonde woman. Gil tossed it 
carelessly toward her, watched her face as she picked it up. 

The woman was lying on her back on a rug, her hands beside her head. Her 
breasts, even in repose, were good. They stood up, strong and firm. 

Her navel was a dark, shadowy dent in a smooth plane of stomach. Curves 
rounded into the mound of love, which was covered by a wisp of thin 
material. Her hair was light and attractively done. Her eyes were large. Her 
lips were parted in a suggestive smile. 

"Friend of yours?" Susan asked, still unsuspecting. 

Gil didn't answer. He pulled another picture from the folder. This one was 
of a tall, muscular man in a swim-suit. He stood beside an expensive-looking 
swimming pool. He looked about 35 years old, had short hair with a natural 
kink. His face was well-featured and reminded Susan of someone. 

"Looks a lot like Gregory Peck, doesn't he?" Gil asked. 

"Gil, baby," Susan said acidly, "I can understand the female pinup. Some 
little boys like them. But why the muscle man?" 

"My week for boys," Gil said. "Actually, he's for you." He grinned at her 
archly. 

"I don't want him," Susan said. 

"This is Mr. Paul Radford," Gil said, tapping the picture with one finger. 
He picked up the picture of the girl. "And this is Mrs. Radford, Una to her 
friends." 

"So?" 

"So," Gil said, looking sheepish. "The Radfords want to buy our dinner next 
Saturday night." 

"For free, take," Susan said. "But why the skin shots?" 

Gil laughed. "Remember that crazy newspaper you brought home? This is that 
swinging Florida couple." 

"You didn't!" Susan said, shocked. 

"I did!" he said. "Not that I'm serious, you understand. I was just curious, 
that's all. I couldn't believe it. I thought I'd answer the ad and see what 
happened. This is it." 

Susan was curious, in spite of her shock. "But what did they have to say?" 

"Oh, their letters are couched in very careful language." 

"You've written them more than once?" 

"Twice. The first letter asking for information and then one telling them 
about us." 

"And just what did you tell them?" 

"Oh, that we were a swinging couple, all that rot. It seems that Mr. Paul 
Radford digs your picture, baby. And Mrs. Una Radford here is ape over yours 
truly." 

"Where did you get a picture of me?" Susan asked. 

"I had a snap enlarged." 

"Which snap?" 

"The time you wore that sexy bikini over at Vero Beach." 

"Oh, you bastard!" Susan said. "I was about to burst out of that thing!" 

"Maybe that's why Paul Radford likes the picture." 

"You silly-" She turned away. "What will those people think?" 

"'Those people' think we're going to Tampa to play fun and games." 

"Well, not me, buddy-boy," Susan said heatedly. "For God's sake, what do you 
think I am?" 

"Hey, cool it! I told you, this is just for laughs. I just wanted to see 
what would happen if I answered their ad, that's all." 

"Let me see their letters," Susan said. 

"Here's the last one." He handed her a typed sheet. 

Dear Susan and Gil, Thank you so much for the very nice pictures. Through 
them, we feel as if we know you without even having met you. Paul cannot get 
over how very lovely you are, Susan. And I think that you, Gil, are a very 
attractive man. I do hope that our pictures pleased you as much. 

Paul suggests-he's leaning over my shoulder as I write, panting with 
impatience-that we get together on neutral ground. Perhaps dinner-our treat 
of course-at the South Seas House in Tampa? Eight o'clock Saturday? 

If you will confirm this date by return mail, Gil, we'll be there early and 
we'll have a cozy table reserved. When you come in, just ask for Paul 
Radford. This will be a lovely way to determine whether or not our little 
friendship by mail is to grow into a more satisfying relationship. It will 
give us a chance to look each other over in person, to talk a bit, to 
discover our mutual interests. 

Please say you'll meet us there? 

Lovingly, Una Radford 

"Someone is nuts," Susan said. 

"It's a little hard to swallow, isn't it? A chick like that and a man who 
isn't a bad looking cat. Seems they're going to a lot of trouble, 
advertising in the newspaper, sending expensive pictures. You'd think 
playmates wouldn't be that hard to find." 

"The way she underlines certain words," Susan said. "That leaves no doubt 
about what they're saying." 

"That's the way it seems." 

"What could they be after? Blackmail?" 

"Oh, I don't think so," Gil said. "It takes all kinds of nuts to make a 
world, doll. Maybe they really do get their kicks this way." 

"Not with me, they don't!" Susan said, letting the letter fall in front of 
Gil. "I'm not going to Tampa." 

"I wasn't really thinking of going," Gil said. "I think I'll write them, 
though. I'll tell them we can't make the gig this time. I'll tell them you 
came down with something, something lingering. We can keep the letters going 
and maybe get them to commit themselves in language a little more clear." 

"Why?" Susan asked. "Why do you want to play around that way? I don't think 
you should. What if they are some kind of blackmailers, or what if they 
suddenly appear at the back door and say, here we are, let's play grab-ass 
or something?" 

"No danger of that," Gil said. "I used the address of the store, and I told 
them our last name was Stevens." 

"Oh, that would make it rough!" Susan said sarcastically. "They'd have a 
real hard time tracing us from that. All they have to do is see the name, 
Gil Emory, up over the door at the store, figure out that, since the store 
is a one-man operation, Gil Stevens must be the same as Gil Emory. Then they 
look under E in the telephone book and here they are, saying-" 

"Let's play grab-ass," Gil finished for her. "You're a worrywart." 

"You shouldn't have written to them in the first place," Susan said. 

"I was just curious," Gil said defensively. "After all, what's the harm? I'm 
going to write them and see if I can draw them out a bit in their next 
letter. I'll put in some sexy things and see if they take the bait." 

"I wouldn't, Gil." She was genuinely concerned. She didn't like any part of 
it. It seemed dangerous, foreign to all her thinking. "They might be nuts or 
something. This person who signs herself Una Radford might be some psycho. 
He could have stolen the pictures somewhere. You just don't know." 

Gil looked thoughtful. "There's only one way to find out." 

"No!" said Susan. 

"It wouldn't really hurt anything. They wouldn't rape us right there in the 
South Seas House. Hell, if they're on the level, we don't have to play games 
with them. The worst we could do is find out about this and get a free meal. 
The South Seas House is a first-class joint. A meal and a couple of drinks 
tfiere is about equal to our weekly budget." 

"No!" said Susan. "Now put that mess away and let's have dinner. 

That was Monday night. 

On Tuesday, things started, as Susan was fond of saying, to go to hell in a 
handbasket. At Lucia's store, she lost her patience with a particularly 
trying matron and told the corseted old bitch that if she didn't like the 
way things were done to take her business elsewhere. The old bitch, it 
seemed, was one of Lucia's oldest, free-spending customers. 

Lucia calmly rebuked Susan, and Susan had to take it. She didn't like taking 
it, but after her temper cooled she realized that she had been in the wrong. 
She took Lucia's bawling out, called the corseted old bitch and apologized. 
It was disgusting to be forced to humble herself for the old bag. It set her 
up for a rousing quarrel with Gil that night. 

The argument began over something completely insignificant and developed 
into a flushed, name-calling knock-down and drag-out during which Susan said 
things about Gil and about his mother she soon regretted. But she was too 
steamed up, too stubborn, to go crawling to Gil. They went to bed not 
speaking. They were cold and distant, and when Gil touched her she pulled 
away. 

The spat continued at the table on Wednesday morning. Susan, sorry about the 
things she'd said, tried to be sweet. 

"So," Gil said nastily, "we're bright and sunny this morning. Just as if 
nothing happened." 

"Nothing did happen, really, Gil. We both just lost our tempers, that's 
all." 

"Speak for yourself," Gil said moodily. 

So she was apologizing again. "I'm sorry, Gil. It's just that-" 

"Oh, so now we're sorry," Gil said. "You think you can say anything, get 
away with murder, just as long as you smile at me and say you're sorry." 

She was surprised. That wasn't like Gil. Gil was the original copy of the 
easy-going husband. He didn't mind a rousing fight now and then, but when 
the fight was over it was over. He never held a grudge. 

"Gil-" 

"I have feelings, Susan," Gil said. "You said some pretty nasty things last 
night." 

"I know. I said I'm sorry." 

"But you meant what you said, didn't you? You said you wished my mother were 
dead, Susan. Do you remember that?" 

"I was mad, Gil. For heaven's sake! You don't really think-" 

"I don't know what to think. You've been acting pretty strange lately." 

She bristled. "I've been acting strangely!" 

"You act as if you were God's gift to the human race. You do as you please. 
You forget you've got a home to look after, and you expect me to just sit 
back and grin and take all the rot you want to hand out." 

"Whoa, buster," she said. "I take care of your damned home, such as it is." 
She knew, she thought, what was bugging him. It was the job. 

"If it's my working that's eating your gizzard, you can forget that, man. 
I'm going to work until I get the kind of clothes I want. You can't buy them 
for me." 

He was deceptively calm. "That's one thing I've been meaning to ask you, 
sweetie. Why the sudden yen for fancy dresses and things? Who are you trying 
to impress?" 

She flushed. It was very close to an accusation. 

"You know better than that," she snapped. 

"Do I? You're gone two or three evenings a week. How do I know what you're 
doing?" 

"Now just a damned minute, Gil Emory. You know damned well what I'm doing." 

"Do I? Don't you think I know how easy it would be for you to say the store 
is open late, or you and Lucia had to put up stock or something. Hell, how 
do I know what you're doing. That Lucia-" 

It was too much. "You son-of-a-bitch," she spat. "How dare you accuse me 
of-" 

"Of what? Do you have a guilty conscience, Susan?" 

"Me?" She was screaming. "What do you mean, do I have a guilty conscience? I 
should think you'd be the one for that, writing those damned letters." 

She threw the manila envelope containing the Radford's pictures on the table 
in front of him. 

"You're trying to set up a wife-swapping deal with total strangers, and you 
have the gall to accuse me of having a guilty conscience." 

"Maybe this is why men swap wives," Gil said, glaring at her. 

She felt the tears forming. There was a sharp little pain at the back of her 
nose. She knew she wouldn't be able to go on much longer without crying. 

"After all," Gil went on, carried along by his anger, "what's wrong with 
what I've done? I was just trying to satisfy my curiosity, that's all. I 
seem to remember that it was your idea." 

How could she explain? She couldn't. She could only strike back. "Sauce for 
the goose," she said inanely. 

"What's that supposed to mean? Lucia?" 

She remembered a weapon. "Not at all," she said quietly. "I mean the mousy 
little wife of your sergeant friend. I'm talking about that weekend in 
Atlanta." She saw from Gil's expression that she had struck a nerve. "Just 
what did you do for a whole weekend alone in Atlanta with that woman while 
her husband was hurrying back to the base for duty? What did you do-play 
checkers?" 

He moistened his lips. "Just what any red-blooded man would do," he said 
defiantly. "I took her to bed." 

"Repeatedly," he added. 

She had. always suspected it. The woman had told her husband, after he'd 
been called back to camp unexpectedly, that she had stopped off with 
relatives over the weekend, and Gil had come home with a very logical story 
about running into buddies in Atlanta and boozing it up with them. 

But Susan had always suspected that Gil and the woman had spent the weekend 
together. 

Suspecting and knowing for sure were two different things, however. It hurt. 
Even after so long a time, it hurt. They had been so happy then. How could 
he have wanted another woman when they were so happy, when the flame of 
their love was so bright? 

"So that's one you owe me, isn't it?" she asked calmly. "Add Lucia, and 
that's two. Maybe we'll go to Tampa Saturday night. I might just take a 
liking to this Paul Radford." 

"Knowing you, I'm sure you would," Gil said. 

"I just might. I'm human." 

"If that's what you want, I'll answer the letter this morning." 

"You do that." 

"Don't think I won't." 

"Oh, I'm sure you will," she said. "I've seen the picture of Una Radford, 
remember?" 

He slammed out of the house, his breakfast unfinished. Susan was at last 
able to give vent to her tears. She ran to the bedroom, threw herself down 
on the spread and let the sobs shake her body until she was emptied. She 
went to the bathroom, rinsed her eyes with cold water, tried to busy herself 
with housework. 

Gil returned to character at mid-morning. "Hey, kid," he said, when she 
answered the telephone. "I said some bad things." 

"Yes you did." 

"Is it too soon to say I'm sorry?" 

She didn't answer for a moment. She felt weak, deserted. Some of the props 
had been knocked out of her life by Gil's admission of his infidelity back 
there in Atlanta. She was still hurt by his voiced doubts of her 
faithfulness. "Maybe it is a little soon," she said. 

"I'll give you until evening," he said. "Just remember that I didn't mean 
half the things I said." 

After she put the telephone back on its cradle, she wondered which half he 
did mean. 

It was one of Susan's evenings to work. She told Lucia she might have to 
give up the job because of problems at home. Lucia didn't seem to be 
concerned about it. There was a coolness between them since the incident of 
the corseted matron. Throughout the evening, their talk was strictly 
business. 

This change in Lucia seemed to confirm to Susan that it would be best if she 
did quit. It was nice to be able to buy a few nice clothes, but she had 
worked long enough to pay for the two outfits. She didn't really need 
anything else. 

Just before closing time a young blonde came into the store, and Lucia 
greeted her and escorted her back to the counter. Susan, not wanting to be 
curious, stayed in front and waited there until Lucia brought the young girl 
to her. 

"This is Frances," Lucia said to Susan. "She's the one I told you about the 
day you came to work. She still hasn't found anything. If you're really 
considering quitting...." 

"I think it would be best, Lucia," Susan said, smiling with resignation. 
Lucia wasn't hiding her attraction to the newcomer very well. "You know how 
it is." 

"I'm so sorry to see you go," Lucia said politely. "I've enjoyed working 
with you. If you should ever need a recommendation, feel free to call on me. 
I'll give you the best one possible." 

"Thanks," said Susan. "I don't think I'll be needing that." 

"Well," Lucia said. "If you ever need anything from the store, I'll give you 
a good discount and you can lay anything away for as long as you like, 
darling." 

"That's very kind, Lucia." 

Lucia walked the blonde to the door, unable to keep her soft hands away from 
the girl's good body. She was so wrapped up in her new playmate that Susan 
had to smile as she began closing down the store for the night. She was sure 
now that it was for the best. 

Her working upset Gil. Her working had led her to commit the nearest thing 
to infidelity she had ever done. Her coming to work had resulted in her 
going to bed with Lucia, and it had put her in a bed with both Lucia and 
Gil. Her working had, she thought, brought unwelcome tension into her 
marriage. She was sorry that she had ever started. 

Now was the time to call it quits and go home to try to repair the damage. 
She wasn't too concerned. Her marriage was strong enough to survive what had 
happened. Not even Mrs. Emory's old stucco house could seriously damage her 
relationship with Gil. 

She was in a very humble frame of mind when she went home to Gil. He tried 
to say that he was sorry again and she wouldn't let him. There was a minor 
competition in apologies. Neither of them was willing to let the other take 
all the blame for their fight. Things ended well in bed, where they both 
won, together. Susan was warm, relaxed, happy. She was dozing when Gil 
pushed her to attract her attention. 

"Susan?" 

"Ummm?" 

"Are you awake?" 

"Just barely." 

"We have a problem." 

"I know," Susan said, thinking he was going to bring up money. "What is it 
this time?" 

"That letter I threatened to write," Gil said. "I did. I was pretty teed 
off. I'm afraid I wrote it and put it into the mail before I cooled down." 

"Well, you can just write another one." 

"Too late. They wouldn't get it in time. They'll be going to Tampa, and 
they'll expect us to meet them there." 

"I thought they lived in Tampa." 

"No, their address is in Miami. You remember they suggested that we meet on 
neutral ground?" 

"I can't be too shook up about it," Susan said sleepily. 

Gil brought up the subject again at breakfast. "We'll be doing them a pretty 
dirty trick if we let them drive all the way to Tampa and don't show up." 

"Call them or something." 

"I tried. No Paul Radford. Must be an unlisted number." 

"Or they're using false names." 

"Be that as it may, I feel badly about it. They may be a couple of nuts, but 
it's still stinky of us to-" 

"Stinky of you, darling. It was your doing, not mine." 

"Well, I feel badly about it." 

"So you go down to Tampa," Susan said. 

"Oh, sure!" 

"Gil, you don't really expect me to go down there knowing that those people 
expect us to-" 

"We could drive down, have dinner and tell them thanks, but no thanks." 

"And get into some tricky situation." 

"I think they're civilized people." 

"It just isn't that important to me, Gil. I don't care what those people 
think, just as long as they don't think I'm like them. The best thing we can 
do is forget the whole mess." 

"It's not that I'm interested in their little games," Gil said. "It's just 
that I hate to tell someone, anyone, that I'm going to do something and then 
not do it." 

There was sudden sickness in Susan's stomach. Was he genuinely concerned 
about keeping his word or did he want to go to Tampa to meet the Radfords 
because of the lovely body of the girl in the picture? More and more she was 
realizing that Gil had changed. 

First had come the gradual loss of interest in making love with her, then 
the confession that he had been unfaithful with the sergeant's wife in 
Adanta. Put the episode of Lucia in between, and you had a changed man, a 
different man from the one she had married and loved. 

She wasn't sure she knew her husband anymore. 

 CHAPTER TWELVE 

Gil hit the Interstate Four exchange and accelerated the VW into the traffic 
stream. They sped over Orlando proper at 55 miles an hour. Traffic was 
moderate at mid-afternoon on a Saturday. Tampa, thanks to the new four-lane 
road, was just three to four hours of comfortable driving away. 

Susan adjusted her seat-belt, lit a cigarette and looked down on the busy 
streets of the town. Soon they were in open country, so swiftly did the new 
road carry them past traffic which once would have cost them an hour or 
more. They were going to meet the Radfords, and Susan was still doubtful 
about it. 

She had finally given in to Gil at one o'clock when he came home, announced 
that he had closed the store for the day and started once again on the line 
that it was only common courtesy to keep the engagement. 

She sighed, shrugged, said, "All right." 

She wore the simple black dress she had bought while working with Lucia but 
took no pleasure in wearing it. It seemed almost vile to be wearing the new 
dress for the first time to a rendezvous with a pair of libertines who were 
thinking about getting the Emorys, separately or together, into bed with 
them. 

Gil turned on the radio and smooth music filled the small car, drowning out 
traffic sounds, the whip of the wind past the windows. There was little talk 
between them. 

Gil had promised her they would do nothing more than have dinner with Paul 
and Una Radford. She herself doubted the Radfords would show up. She felt 
the whole thing was a hoax, that they would go into the South Seas House, 
ask for Paul Radford and get nothing more than a blank stare. 

To guard against that, Gil cashed a check. They would at least be able to 
have dinner if the Radfords weren't there, so the long drive would not be 
completely wasted. 

Since neither of them had been to Tampa since the big new highways were 
built, Gil got lost trying to find Hillsboro Avenue. He said it was a good 
thing they had allowed a time margin. Susan didn't care. He tried to cheer 
her up, tried to get her to look on the coming evening as an adventure, an 
interesting excursion into an area of human behavior unfamiliar to them. 
Susan said that she wasn't really interested in people who placed ads 
advertising for wife swapping partners. 

Gil finally found the South Seas House. It was impressive, very expensive 
looking. 

"Let's hope they're there," Gil said. "Our little bankroll might not be 
enough for napkins and water." 

"We can always go get a hamburger at a drive-in and go to a movie," Susan 
said. 

"After coming this far, I'm going to see if those cats are for real," Gil 
said. 

It was past eight when Gil pulled into the parking lot at the South Seas 
House. A girl in a grass skirt met them just inside the door. 

"We're looking for a Mr. Paul Radford," Gil said. "He's expecting us." 

The girl consulted a chart. "Oh, yes," she said, in a very non-South Seas 
accent. "This way, please." 

Susan's heart beat rapidly. She had been hoping the Radford's invitation was 
a joke. Gil followed the grass skirt across a large area, past a secluded 
bar, up three steps and into a dining area with a view of the water. Susan 
walked behind Gil, straight, proud, hiding her unease. She was a target for 
male eyes. Her black sheath fitted her tightly. 

She felt the attention and tried to walk without her usual hip-swaying 
movement. She felt self-conscious and unnatural. She took a deep breath, 
thought to hell with feeling embarrassed, and swung after Gil, very 
feminine, her hair gleaming in the subdued lights, her eyes on Gil's back. 

"Ah, there you are!" It was Paul Radford, rising from a table near the huge 
windows. 

Susan recognized him immediately from his picture. She decided that he 
looked younger in person. His dark hair was curled close against his head, 
but on him it looked good. He kept it cut short enough to avoid any taint of 
effeminacy. He looked very masculine. 

"Gil!" Radford extended his hand. "Glad you could come." So far it was like 
a business meeting or something. 

Radford turned his attention to Susan. She saw smiling blue eyes, a firm, 
well-formed mouth with lips that held a promise of sensuality. It was a 
pleasant face. He had good white teeth. 

"Susan!" he said, caressing her name, making it sound lovely. "You're as 
beautiful as your picture." 

"This must be Una," said Gil. 

The blonde Una smiled blazingly and extended her hand over the table without 
rising. Gil took her hand and Susan saw long, tapered fingers with perfect 
nails close and squeeze Gil's hand. 

"It's good to meet you, Susan," Una said. 

"Sit down, sit down!" Radford said, laughing good naturedly. "I've ordered 
for all of us, if you have no objections." 

"We trust your judgment," Gil said. 

Susan settled into a comfortable chair. She looked again at Paul Radford. 
There was something fascinating about him. He had perfect ease of manner, 
along with good looks. His suit was of excellent material, probably 
hand-tailored, much more expensive than Gil's charcoal-grey. 

A waitress in a grass skirt, obviously cued in advance by Radford, brought 
exotic drinks on a large tray. The drink was mixed in a pineapple. 

"To the four of us!" Paul Radford said. 

Susan sampled the mixture through straws stuck in the top of the pineapple. 
It was sweet, beefed up underneath by liberal quantities of rum. 

She thought, well, what the hell! 

She needed something to help her get through this evening. She wondered how 
long it would take the Radfords to bring the conversation around to sex. 
When they did, if Gil didn't speak up she would. Look, she'd say, you're 
pretty people and all that, but I don't like the name of the game. 

"Did you have a pleasant drive down, Gil?" Una Radford asked. The seating 
was arranged so that Una was next to Gil, while Susan's chair was closer to 
Paul. Una's question set the mood for a while. Meaningless chatter-no 
personal questions-dull conversation about the drive to Tampa, about Tampa's 
mushroom growth, about the differences in weather between Orlando and Miami. 
Susan joined in politely, working on her drink, which seemed to be 
bottomless. 

"I must warn you," Paul said to her. "This thing has hidden fangs. It's 
designed to make strong men weak." 

"It's good," Susan said, not willing to exchange repartee with Radford. She 
didn't want to become too friendly with them, to give them ideas. 

Waitresses brought food. The small table was filled with appetizers, and 
they were only preliminaries to the main event. Susan tried tasty bits of 
pork, of fish, of things she didn't recognize. Her appetite had dulled by 
the time the entree arrived, and she didn't eat much. Una and Gil were 
talking between themselves in low voices. Now and then Susan could hear. 
They were exchanging likes and dislikes, like two young people out on a 
date. 

Radford, as if sensing Susan's reserve, was polite. When he spoke it was 
pertinent, terse, sometimes quite witty. Susan couldn't help but like him. 
In spite of the aura of unreality about the whole affair, Paul Radford was a 
civilized man. 

She could hardly believe that the meeting had been arranged through an ad in 
a tabloid" paper. She couldn't picture Paul Radford posing his wife in the 
nude for sexy pictures. He seemed to be several cuts above the ordinary, 
well mannered, cultivated. She began to talk with him, was amazed to find 
out how easy it was. It was much later that she realized that she was 
talking with great animation, laughing, enunciating each word carefully to 
cover the fact that she was beginning to feel the potent drinks. 

When Radford suggested they move the party to the bar, she went without 
protest. The meal had been delicious. She felt fine. She had put the dirty 
implications of the evening out of her mind and was simply enjoying the 
company of two interesting people in luxurious surroundings. 

She let Radford take her arm. When they were seated at the bar, she was next 
to Paul with Una on her left and Gil beyond Una. Radford ordered drinks. 
Hers was a pleasant concoction which tasted as harmless as fruit punch. She 
liked the place. She thought the Radfords were very pleasant. 

"Gil," she called, leaning in front of Una. "It's a long drive back to 
Orlando, doll. Don't you think we should start thinking about leaving?" 

"Leaving?" Una was aghast. "I thought you were staying the night with us." 

"We've rented a very comfortable place," Paul said softly. "It's on the bay. 
There's a beautiful view, and we've stocked the bar well. We can move the 
party there. There's more than enough room for you two if you see fit to 
spend the night." 

Susan squinted meaningfully at Gil, saying mentally, Get me out of here I 

"I wish we could," Gil said, "but-" 

"It's much too far to drive to Orlando tonight," Una said with finality. "We 
wouldn't think of letting you go out on the road in this condition." She 
patted Gil's cheek playfully. "You're getting twittered, darling." 

"Don't I know it!" 

"A shame to let the apartment go to waste," Paul Radford said. 

"You see," Susan said, looking daggers at Gil, "we promised Gil's mother to 
be back tonight. 

She's quite old, and she worries about her little boy." 

"Oh?" Paul looked at Susan. He smiled. "At least come see the place. If you 
feel that you must drive back tonight, we'll fortify you with black coffee 
and see you off." He put his hand lightly on Susan's arm. "We don't want to 
lose two very attractive new friends." 

"I don't think-" Susan began. 

Gil said loudly, "We'll stop by for a bite. That coffee sounds like a 
winner." 

Radford was a smooth operator. He manipulated Susan into his car before she 
had a chance to protest. It was a new Continental, huge and very plush. It 
smelled of luxury. Susan thought it amusing to think of Una, used to such 
roominess, trying to climb into the little Volkswagen with Gil. To break the 
silence as Paul maneuvered the car into traffic, she voiced her thoughts 
about the difference in the two automobiles. 

"Una will manage," Paul laughed. "She's quite adaptable." 

He drove a few blocks in silence. "Una is a remarkable woman. I think you'll 
like her very much." 

"I'm sure I will," Susan said. 

"I consider myself very fortunate to have found a girl like Una," Radford 
went on. "I don't deserve her. She's very understanding, very mature. She's 
intensely loyal. She has become so much a part of me that I can't believe my 
fortune." 

It puzzled Susan. Why was he giving her a hard sell on Una? Was this 
supposed to be a wife swapping gig or a mating of likes? 

"Una is one in a million," Radford said. "We understand each other 
perfectly. I love her beyond reason." 

Why, then, was he trying to set up a deal? She began to suspect that perhaps 
Una Radford wasn't interested in Gil. 

"I'm telling you this so that you'll understand about us," Radford went on. 
"I was very much alone until I met Una. I couldn't believe, at first, that 
there was another person in the world who could see things as I see them. 
The more we came to know each other, the more we knew we were made for each 
other. We wanted the same things out of life, the good things." 

"Oh?" Susan was beginning to doubt her analysis now. She wasn't sure just 
what Radford was saying. 

"It may be very egotistical of us," Paul said, "but we consider ourselves 
somewhat special. We like to think of ourselves as being two of the very few 
really free people in the world, free of set ideas, set morality-" 

"I see," said Susan, beginning to believe that she really did understand 
what he was getting at. 

"We think it takes a special breed of people to reach for the good things in 
life without being inhibited by custom and habit. That's why we find it so 
pleasant to discover a wonderful couple like you and Gil. I'm sure, having 
been with you this evening, that you and Gil are our kind of people." 

Little do you know, buster! Susan thought. 

Aloud she said, "I see," minking-now comes the pitch. Now he's going to say, 
let's choose up sides and go to bed. 

His hand reached for hers, found it. "I'm sure we're all going to be very 
good friends, Susan. I must admit that I'm very much impressed by you-and by 
your husband." 

Susan let her hand stay in his. To pull it away would be to admit she was 
not as sophisticated as the Radfords. He had done a very deft job of making 
it sound as if switching partners were the intelligent, sophisticated thing 
to do. 

She was still under the spell of the expensive night club, the elegant 
surroundings, the urbanity of the Radfords. She knew she would have to tell 
Paul Radford and his sexy wife in no uncertain terms that Gil and Susan 
Emory were not their 'special kind of people." 

For the moment, she remained silent. 

 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

Then they were there. The impressive apartment building faced the water, and 
there was ample parking space for both cars. 

The apartment was a vast expanse of carpeted areas and ultra-modern 
furniture. Small talk-a drink-music from hidden speakers, soft, throbbing. 
Gil and Una huddled at the bar, his head bent toward hers. Time seemed to 
stand still. 

Susan tried to catch Gil's eye, to tell him, Goddammit! Let's get out of 
this guilded spider's den and go home. 

He wouldn't look at her. He had eyes only for Una. She wore an extremely low 
cut gown, sparkling with rhinestones. The cut gave Gil a spectacular view of 
lush upper breast-curves and when Una laughed, as she did often, she would 
let her shoulders slump forward to reveal even more. 

"What about that coffee?" Susan asked. 

"Later," Gil said. "Right now I'm making a fool of myself with good scotch." 

Later, she had a chance to speak with Gil. 

"Aw, come on, honey!" he said. "We'll cut out before things happen. They 
haven't tried to rape us yet, have they?" 

"Gil," Susan said desperately. "Don't do this! Don't do this to me!" 

She felt desperately alone, frightened. Worse, she was beginning to be 
attracted to Paul Radford. His flattery, his looks, his virility were having 
their effect on her. Dammit, she was human. He was an attractive man. She 
felt an ominous air of evil hanging over her. Something was going to happen 
if they didn't get out of there. 

"I'm not going to do anything to you," said Gil. "Una talked pretty freely 
on the way over. You're right in thinking that they'd like to play games. 
She admitted as much. But she also said that they didn't believe in pushing 
people into anything. She said that neither she nor Paul would make the 
first move. So, if we don't do it, this is just a get-acquainted night. 
Okay?" 

Una Radford broke up the conversation by drawing Gil onto the large rug. She 
draped herself around him and left Susan alone with Paul while the soft 
music throbbed. 

"They dance well together," Paul observed. 

"Yes." 

"Shall we see if we can do as well?" 

There was nothing else to do. Her husband was dancing with the tall, 
beautiful Una. She let Paul take her into his arms. He was a good dancer. He 
didn't hold her tightly. There was no clutching, no pressing of his body 
against hers. Gradually, she let the tension drain out of her. 

It was good music and Paul was a fine dancer and the drinks were buzzing 
around inside her head. Well, it was get-acquainted night. She wouldn't make 
the first move. She felt relatively safe. She decided to relax and enjoy it. 
After all, a very attractive man was being very attentive. 

"You're a fine dancer," she said. 

"It's only because of my partner," he said. He had a nice way of talking. 
Flattery which would have sounded corny from someone else sounded natural on 
Paul's lips. 

It was, she discovered, after midnight. There had been several trips to the 
bar. They had stopped dancing and were sitting in the living area. 

"See," Gil told her in a whisper, while Paul and Una were doing something 
somewhere else, "I told you it would be all right." 

Paul came back and began talking about hobbies. It seemed that he was very 
hip on photography. 

"Lately," he said, "I've been shooting color movies. I know it sounds 
immodest, but some of them are damned good." 

"Well, they are, darling," Una said. "You don't have to be modest." 

"Too bad we can't see some of them," said Gil. 

Paul chuckled. "I just happen to have brought my projector and screen and a 
few choice samples." He turned to Susan. "I don't want to bore you. If you'd 
rather not...." 

"Please show them." Susan was being polite. She expected typical home 
movies. "I'd like to see them." 

"Remember," Paul laughed. "You insisted." Paul set up a large screen and the 
projector. He directed Susan to sit beside him on a couch behind the 
projector, which was set on a low table. Gil and Una were on a matching 
couch a few feet away and to one side. 

"Lights out!" Radford said, throwing a switch to plunge the room into total 
darkness. As he made his way back to the couch, he put his hand on Susan's 
leg. 

"Excuse me," he said. "Can't see a thing." 

The projector lights came on, but the machine was well shielded. Only the 
beam of light to the screen was visible. The rest of the room was in 
darkness. An image jumped onto the screen. Susan recognized the expensive 
swimming pool in front of which Paul had been standing when the picture he 
had sent them was made. The color was beautiful. The camera panned the area, 
showing that the pool was enclosed completely. Una Radford walked into the 
scene, very much at ease. 

Una said, "I didn't know Paul was within a hundred miles when this was 
taken. I thought he'd gone out." 

"You're not going to be modest, are you?" Paul asked her. 

"Nice picture," Gil said. His voice was muddy. Susan could tell that he was 
pretty well smashed. 

"Very nice picture," she heard Gil say as Una Radford, in the movie, quickly 
stripped off her clothing. It was skillfully done. The full-color image was 
almost life-size. She dropped her neat skirt, unbuttoned and slipped out of 
her blouse. She stretched, clad in panties and bra. 

She rubbed her breasts, as most women do when they first remove a bra, to 
ease the irritation of straps. She stepped out of her panties quickly and 
gracefully. She kicked them to one side and lay down on a lounge. She sat up 
after a moment, took sun lotion and, in a slow, sensuous caress, applied it 
to her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, her legs. 

"All I was doing was taking a sun-bath," said Una, "and that sneak was 
hidden in the bushes with his little camera." 

Una, the image, lay back. The camera zoomed in for a close-up of her 
breasts. The camera came slowly down past her indrawn stomach, paused for a 
moment, then went a bit lower. Una slowly raised one leg to cock her knee. 
The picture faded out at Una's ankle. 

"Now isn't that pretty good for a beginner?" Paul asked. It was as if he 
were discussing a snapshot of the Grand Canyon or something. 

"I'm impressed," said Gil from the darkness across the room. "The audience 
wants more." 

"More of what, darling?" Una asked in a low voice. 

"I'm afraid I didn't bring any more of my own pictures," Paul said. 
"However, I do have a reel or two of some very interesting stuff." 

"Run it," said Gil. 

"It's a bit-unusual," said Paul. 

"Stop being shy, darling," Una said. "We're all adults." 

"Everyone get decent," Paul said. "I'll have to have some light." 

Una's lipstick was smeared, Susan saw. She also noted how close Gil was 
sitting to Una. Dammit, he'd said nothing was going to happen! Either he was 
making the moves, or he had been wrong about Una. 

How had she ever allowed herself to be put in such a position? All Gil was 
thinking about was getting into Una Radford's well filled lingerie. He was 
forgetting that this was not like the time with Lucia. This time, things 
could be very different, because there was another man around. 

Darkness-the hum of the projector-a woman, nude, attractive, not as pretty 
as Una Radford. She was well formed and lay on her back on a bed reading a 
book. For a few seconds, nothing happened. 

The camera moved from the woman to a window to show the face of a man. He 
pushed open the french window and stepped into the room and grabbed the nude 
woman. There was a struggle, and the pair fell heavily across the bed. 

Soon the struggle stopped. There was a kiss, closeup. A warm smile of 
pleasure was on the woman's face when the kiss broke, and the camera moved 
to show why. 

Susan could hear her own breathing. 

The man stripped quickly. Closeup camera work showed vivid details of what 
followed. There was silence in the living room of the luxurious apartment 
and she could sense Paul Radford's presence close to her although he was not 
touching her. 

"WowI" Susan said when the film ended. 

"Wild, isn't it?" Paul asked. "It's one of the better ones, I think. You'd 
almost believe they were enjoying it, not just acting." 

"I've never seen anything like it," Susan said. She felt strangely excited. 
The film had aroused familiar stirrings within her that she recognized as 
danger signals. A little more of that kind of stimulation and- 

"Would you like to see another?" Paul asked. 

"I don't know," Susan said, torn between her curiosity to see what else Paul 
had in his photographic bag of tricks and the common-sense desire to get the 
hell out of there. "Gil, what about you. Want to see another?" 

Silence. 

"Now where the heck are they?" she asked. "My guess would be-in bed!" Paul's 
voice was quiet. 

Susan's heart leaped. She rose from the couch hurriedly and bumped into the 
table. 

"You'd better let me turn on a light," Paul said. He found the switch for a 
small table lamp. The couch was empty. There were only Susan and Paul in the 
room. 

"Shall we do a little spying?" Radford asked with a laugh. 

Susan, unable to find her voice, nodded. Radford led the way toward the 
bedrooms. 

The door was open. Una Radford was perched astride Gil. They were both nude. 
As Susan watched just outside the door, in the light of a bed lamp she saw 
Una raise herself high, lower herself, heard her moan with pleasure. They 
were already hard at it! 

She was frozen to the spot. It was so damned sudden, so unexpected. Gil had 
told her nothing would happen unless one of them made the first move. Well, 
Mr. Gil Emory must have done some serious moving while the movies were being 
shown. 

She felt the touch of Paul's hand on her arm. His arm went around her waist. 
She couldn't move. She could only watch the slow movements of the two on the 
bed. Her husband! And a beautiful woman who was giving herself to him, 
giving herself with evident enthusiasm. She saw Una, impaled, lifting, 
lowering, Gil moving up, down. 

Then suddenly, Una disengaged herself, went into a crouch to do something to 
Gil Susan had never done. She watched Gil's face and gasped as he put his 
hands behind Una's blonde head and locked his fingers in her tousled hair. 
His body arched, and he sighed. 

Radford pulled her away. If he had tried to pull her into the bedroom, she 
might have screamed. 

He drew her back into the living area. 

"I didn't expect that," he said. "I wasn't sure we were ready for that." 

Susan couldn't speak. 

"Don't be upset," he pleaded. 

Emotions battled within her. Repulsion-guilt-feeling of wrongness. Yet, 
riding over it all, there was lust, crying out with its inexorable voice. 
Una was having Gil. Gil was venting his passion in that soft, blonde body. 

And here was her partner, standing beside her, a man, an attractive man who 
wanted her. It was wrong, but its very wrongness added zest to the singing 
passion that engulfed her in a flood. 

Slowly, deliberately, she reached behind her. She found the zipper and undid 
it. She shrugged out of the dress and let it fall to the floor. She posed 
for a moment for Paul, because his eyes were admiring her, seemed to 
penetrate the flimsy covering of her white panties, her lacy bra. 

"How very beautiful!" Paul breathed. He didn't touch her then. He waited as 
she dropped her bra, stepped out of her panties. Then he lifted her into his 
arms. She let her head rest against his shoulder, felt the strength of his 
body as he carried her. 

The bed was huge and firm. She lay on her back and watched as Paul removed 
his clothes. He was a very big man, bigger than Gil. 

He walked slowly to the bed and stood for a moment, looking down at her. 

"Lovely Susan!" he murmured. 

 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

She didn't know what to expect. That was a part of the excitement flowing 
through her. She didn't know whether Paul would come roaring down on her 
like a maddened bull, brutalizing her, punishing her selfishly, or whether 
he would be velvet and fire-ice in his approach. For a moment, looking up at 
him, she hoped he would be violent. She almost wanted him to hurt her, to 
churn into her with massiveness and strength and take her forcefully. 

He sat down on the edge of the bed. He smiled at her. She extended a hand to 
touch him on the leg. She wanted him. She wanted to be ravished, used, used 
hard. Perhaps she felt that by having him use her brutally, she would be 
absolved of guilt. What she was about to do was in direct contradiction to 
everything she had ever believed. 

Susan Emory was basically a moral girl. She had flouted convention before. 
She had had her almost forgotten affair with Lucia Moreland. She had enjoyed 
premarital sex with Gil. At that time her craving had been so strong that 
she flouted her conscience, went against her training, opened her soft body 
to sinful bliss. 

That, however, was vastly different. She had done it, true, against her 
better judgment. She had given her body to a man without the legal blessing 
of the law or the moral sacrament of the church. But she was in love then, 
hopelessly and completely in love with Gil. At that time she knew, deep in 
her heart, that her sin would be erased by marriage. 

Now, as she lay supine, waiting with pounding heart for Paul Radford to make 
love to her, there was no justification for the thrills that ran up and down 
the long, smooth columns of her legs. What she craved was sex, what she felt 
was lust. Not for a moment did she tell herself she loved Paul. 

She was fully aware that she was nude and willing purely because the hunger 
of her body was so overpoweringly strong. Nor would she try to justify her 
actions by telling herself, later, that she had been too drunk to know what 
she was doing. She was not drunk. Tipsy, yes-stimulated, yes. She knew what 
she was doing. She knew what she wanted to do. 

Paul Radford, leaning over her, was not love. He was sheer lust, and she was 
going to accept him and match his lust. She was going to like it! She knew 
that. She burned, quivered, gasped for him, and he had yet to touch her. 
Throbs of anticipation swept through her. Come on, boy! she thought. Get 
with it! 

His hand touched her loin. It was fire and ice. She almost screamed at the 
thrill of his touch. When his hand moved, when his fingers teased, touched, 
she felt her buttocks muscles tense, felt herself lift herself to reach for 
him. It was as if that part of her were a living thing with hungers of its 
own. 

She put up her arms and embraced him. Her lips parted. He came to her, his 
body hard and hot against her waiting softness. He lowered himself gently 
onto her, their torsos pressed together, her breasts flattening. She thrust 
her lower body against him, wanting him all the way. He didn't respond. 

Unable to endure it, she contorted herself to make the contact that 
mattered. Her whole body shivered as if from vast cold. She thrilled with a 
passion, with an intensity she hadn't felt in years. 

He kissed her at last. She couldn't breathe for long moments. Her insides 
seemed to melt, to run down in molten ecstasy to concentrate in that 
throbbing, living center of her awareness. His kiss was soft. She felt her 
heart pumping from the sweetness of it. Then she opened her mouth wide and 
used her tongue to spur him on. She mouthed him with wet lips, with extended 
tongue. 

"I have to ask you one thing," he whispered. "Don't talk," she breathed, 
lost in the wonder of her fire. 

"I must know this, now. Will it be just once for you or more than once?" 

"More than once," she whispered, enraptured by the idea. More than once. 
Much-much-much more than once. Three times. Four. AU night. 

"In that case," he said. 

He was there. He had asked her the question because, she realized, he wanted 
her as badly as she wanted him. Now that he knew, he was going to take her 
quickly. 

He was, she realized with a burst of passion, going to take her hard and 
fast the first time. Then there would be more. 

She let her legs cooperate, to give him that which had, till then, been 
Gil's. He was there, and love's portals slid aside under his gentle but firm 
pressure. There was no need for guidance. They united as if from long habit. 

She gasped, arched herself. The long slide began. It went on and on until 
she felt herself gloriously expanded. She had never felt anything like him. 

She wanted more. She couldn't get enough. 

She moaned with bliss. Her legs lifted high. Her breathing became a lusty 
anthem to lust. 

"Oh-it's good?' She heard herself and didn't recognize it. It was a 
stranger's voice, a hoarse croak of desire. 

His lips met hers. He tried to devour her with his kiss as the moment 
stretched on and on, and then the movement began, rhythmic, wonderful, 
heaven, with quick beats of contact and pressings and his never varied 
penetration. 

She smothered him with her softness. 

She actually felt him climax, moved rapidly, using him to make the best 
possible ending for herself. Then she was weak, moving feebly to retain him 
in her flesh. 

"I may not let you go," she whispered. "I may hold you here forever." 

She felt wonderfully carnal. She relished the memory of their perfect 
climax, lost herself in lascivious yearning for the next. She wanted nothing 
more than to start it all over again. She wanted to pile thrill on thrill 
until he did it to her again. 

"Don't go!" Her voice was panicky as he tried to pull away. 

"I won't." 

Everything had been planned well. Paul had a miniature bar in the bedroom. 
He didn't even have to get off the bed to mix a drink. Susan gulped hers 
greedily and watched him with hungry eyes as she fondled his thigh. 

Paul put down his empty glass and smiled at her. "Now, my little 
sex-machine...." 

"Yes?" 

There was no prelude, just an immediate quick thrill of his kiss, and she 
was squirming. She thought of Lucia. Lucia had done it to her that way. It 
was better with Paul, because she knew what was to follow. 

It went on and on and she was screaming inside, and then, when she couldn't 
stand it another second, she pushed him onto his back and mounted him, 
pushing herself down, missing him, moving desperately until she was right 
there over him and squirming down, down. She did it the way Una had been 
doing Gil. "Oh God, Paul!" 

She used her weight to impale herself. His hands toyed with her. 

True pleasure built within her, that wonderful dramatic storm inside her, 
the spasmodic pulsing of togetherness again. 

And it was to happen once more! There were more drinks. 

It happened again after he explained to her that he was at a point where 
drastic measures were necessary to create renewed desire. She wanted the 
night to be endless, so when he told her what he wanted, she was willing. 
She had never done it before, but it was thrilling to feel him respond to 
her soft mouth's caresses-to feel new life begin and expand. Then she was 
pulling him atop her again. 

Fatigue at last caught up with her. The drinks seemed to hit her all at 
once. She was almost gone, unable to coordinate her movements. She 
remembered mumbling that she wanted to sleep with Paul. She remembered that 
she felt him as she went to sleep, naked, used, with Paul's body heavy atop 
her. 

 CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

Out of long habit, she reached for Gil when she awoke. The bed was empty. 
The shades were drawn, but even the dim light caused her to close her eyes 
quickly. 

There was a vile taste in her mouth. Her tongue was furry. Her throat was 
sore from cigarettes. Her stomach was fluttery, her head a solid furnace of 
pain. 

"I'm dying," she said. "Hey, Gil! I'm dying. Wanta come to my funeral?" 

She had had hangovers before, but never like this! This was a beast which 
seemed bent on destroying her. She moaned and closed her eyes. She hurt all 
over. 

The knowledge of why, the sudden remembering, was worse than the pain in her 
head. 

She moaned in anguish. She had done it all! The good little girl had really 
torn it! There was her pre-marital roll in the hay with Gil. There was the 
velvet trap she had fallen into with Lucia. But this! 

She wished fervently that she was like some people who claim they don't 
remember anything when they're drunk. She remembered everything. She 
remembered vividly and wasn't sure she could endure the thundering remorse 
which filled her. 

She couldn't stand it. She would never be able to face Gil, or Paul, or Una. 
She wasn't even sure she could face herself. 

She staggered out of bed and into the bathroom, still half-drunk. She put 
her finger down her throat and retched violently. Nothing happened. The huge 
meal of the evening before, the drinks, had all been processed by her 
healthy body and she suffered agonizing dry heaves. 

She leaned weakly against the wash-basin and ran cold water, sloshed it 
against her face. She drank greedily from her cupped hands. She looked at 
herself in the mirror and saw dark circled eyes, messy hair. Slut! She was 
afraid, then, that she was going to live. 

She found the note from Paul on the bedside table. 





My lovely playmate, So sorry to leave without seeing you again, but 



we must start back for Miami now. I'll be looking forward to the 



next time. Take good care of that wonderful body of yours. I'll be 



spending my hours thinking of ways to make the next time even 



better. 



I awoke wanting you, lovely Susan. Too bad you missed the last 



performance, but I enjoyed it! 



Paul 

 She gagged, threw the note onto the floor and fell back across the bed. He 
had taken her that morning! She hadn't even known! 

Much later, she gathered enough strength to shower. Cold water made her feel 
a little better physically. She decided it was time to face Gil. She found 
him in the kitchen with the Sunday paper. He didn't hear her come in. 

He was fully dressed and looked a little the worse for wear. His hand shook 
when he lifted his coffee. 

She braced herself, threw back her shoulders. She ran one hand through her 
hair and walked in. She felt silly in the sexy, black sheath which was the 
only cover she had with her. 

"Hi, Gil." 

He looked up, his face expressionless. 

She sat down, holding her neck stiff. Any movement of her head started the 
waves of sickness and the pain. 

"Got plenty of coffee?" she asked. 

He poured her a cup. She laced it liberally with cream to cool it and sipped 
slowly. 

"Gil," she said, after a long silence. 

"Yeah." He didn't lift his eyes from the paper. 

"I went a little ape last night." It was the understatement of the year. 

"I guess we both did." 

"Oh, Gil!" She wailed all the anguish she felt. She felt the dirt and the 
evil in her. "I'm sorry, Gil. I'm so very, very sorry." 

"So what's to be sorry?" he asked, still unsmiling. "We had a ball. It's 
over." 

"Is it? Is is over?" 

"It is unless we start looking under that dead dog's tail to see what made 
it die," Gil said. 

So, he, too, was upset. She hoped he was as sick as she was. She hoped it 
would haunt him the rest of his life. He had promised her faithfully that 
nothing would happen, and he had made the first move. 

She couldn't stop the sobs. They burst from her. She ran into the bedroom 
and fell across the mussed bed. She was scared. The intensity of her 
reaction was frightening. She didn't know what was happening to her. 

She didn't realize that her sobs soon became screams. She did realize 
vaguely that Gil was in the room. 

"Susan!" 

She could hear her name. His hand touched her, and she screamed again, high 
and shrill. He was dirt, and she was dirt, and she couldn't bear the thought 
of his touching her. She didn't want any man to touch her, ever again. 

There was a sudden loud sound, a shock, dull pain. He had hit her. Her sobs 
quieted. 

She didn't feel like talking on the drive home. He tried once or twice to 
get her to speak. She drew into herself, trying to be numb, trying to stop 
the memories. 

'I'll be spending my hours thinking of ways to make the next time better," 
Paul Radford had written. 

What had happened to her? Where were her dreams? Was she to go through life 
looking forward to the next time, to bigger and better lust? She had proven 
to herself and to the world what she was. Slut! Whore! Pervert! 

She stayed in bed for two days. Gil left her there. He, too, was silent. The 
house was quiet, devoid of life, empty of meaning. 

On the morning of the third day she packed her things. She threw the sexy, 
breast-exposing black dress into the waste can. She wrote a check for $100 
and cashed it at the supermarket. 

She rented a one-room efficiency apartment far across town, not using her 
right name. She spent the days and nights there, numb, making only necessary 
movements. Her shocked system seemed to allow a great blankness in her mind 
and it was only occasionally that she revived enough to see, once again, the 
events of the night in Tampa. 

When there was no money left to buy even the small amounts of food she had 
been taking, she found a job in a department store. The days passed. She 
worked and sat quietly in the apartment. She began to live again, slowly. 
She went to the movies alone. She ate her meals alone. She lost five pounds, 
all from her hips and her waist. Her clothes were loose on her. She spent 
long evenings taking them in. 

When she thought of Gil it was with a dull sense of loss. Where there had 
been love there was nothing more than numbness. Men tried to make her 
acquaintance, but it was as if all her interest in life had been burned out 
of her. She ignored the men. She wouldn't even talk with them. 

There came a day when she was recovered enough to know that she had been 
slightly crazy. The baths, for example. At first, she took long, steaming 
baths and scrubbed herself until her skin hurt. She was, had been, slightly 
insane. She realized she was better when she moderated the baths, knowing 
instinctively that water and soap would not cleanse her, that only time 
could do the job. 

Susan walked the streets on a Sunday afternoon, and felt a stir of renewed 
interest in things around her. She took her time and studied dresses in 
store windows. She walked idly, letting her thoughts stray. She basked in 
the warm sun and enjoyed the fresh smells of a bakery. 

There was a man waiting in front of her apartment. He was dressed in a well 
worn suit and he flicked a cigarette away as she walked slowly toward him. 

"Susan Emory?" he asked in a heavy voice as she neared. It was the first 
time anyone had called her that since she left her home. She was Susan 
Stevens. 

"I'm Baker, Orlando Police. Are you Susan Emory?" 

She sighed. She nodded. 

"Your husband is very worried about you," the policeman said. 

She felt an urge to turn and run, but she knew she couldn't run forever. She 
let the policeman take her to Gil. They met in a bare little room at the 
police station. 

"Hello, Gil," she said. 

"Susan!" he said. 

"How have you been, Gil?" 

"I've been almost out of my mind," he said. 

"How's your mother?" 

"She's okay now." 

"Now?" 

"She broke her hip," Gil said. 

"Oh?" She was being polite to a stranger. "How did it happen?" 

"She was dusting the stairs. She fell. She lay at the foot of the stairs for 
hours. It was pretty bad." 

"I'm sorry," Susan said. 

"She's fine now. She'll be coming home from the hospital soon. She's going 
to move in with me for a while." 

A small spark of bitterness stirred the deadness in her. So Mrs. Emory was 
going to move in now that it didn't matter? 

"I'm going to have to hire a nurse for a while," Gil said. 

There was coldness between them. She wondered why he had gone to the trouble 
to find her. "You can't really afford that, can you?" 

"Someone has to be with her. She won't be able to get out of bed for a long 
time." He coughed. "I'm going to insist that she sell the house. It's too 
much. After the hospital bills, which the insurance didn't cover, and the 
nurse-" 

"I think that's a wise decision," she said. 

"She doesn't like it, but we're going to sell and that's that." 

She felt very strange. There was that little feeling of loss. "Why didn't 
you do it years ago, Gil?" 

His mouth formed unspoken words. He swallowed. 

"It's nice to have seen you, Gil," she said. "Do you mind if I go now?" 

"Susan." It was painful. He swallowed hard. "Don't...." 

"You have my address now," she said. "If you want to contact me...." She 
turned, was halfway out the door before he caught her, his hand on her 
shoulder. 

"You can't do that," he said. "You can't just walk away." 

"Why not?" 

"It just doesn't make sense." He turned her, held her shoulders. "What's 
happened to us, Susan?" 

"If you don't remember, you're fortunate," she said. 

"I want you to come home." He spoke very softly. 

"No!" 

"I need you, Susan. The house is empty. It's cold." 

"You'll have your mother." 

"Susan, listen to me. Come back. We can work it out. Give it a chance." 

"We had our chance, and blew it," she said. 

"Just try it. Come back for a few days. Let's give ourselves a chance." 

"Are you sure you're just not trying to get a free nurse for Mother?" 

He scowled. "I'll hire a nurse. Please, come back." 

"It won't do any good." 

"We can make it work." 

She studied him, noted the darkness under his eyes. She wondered if he were 
working too hard, if he remembered to send out for his lunch. She steeled 
herself against such thoughts. That was no longer her concern. But she had 
wasted five years worrying about him. 

"Does it mean that much to you?" she asked. 

"It means everything to me." 

"All right," she said. She would show him. She would show him that there was 
nothing there any more, and perhaps that would make it easier for him. 

She moved into the small bedroom. Mrs. Emory came home from the hospital and 
was installed in the guest room. Susan spent the first days caring for the 
invalid. Mrs. Emory tried to question Susan. Susan told her to mind her own 
business. There was a bit of tension after that, but Mrs. Emory settled into 
the routine of the days. If the elder woman noticed the coldness which 
persisted between Susan and Gil she didn't mention it. 

It was an unreal situation. To Susan, it seemed as if she were still 
divorced from reality. She held to herself by falling back into the daily 
routine of housework. She was efficient. Not even the extra work of caring 
for Mrs. Emory prevented her from having a spotless house. When Gil came 
home, his dinner was ready. They would sit at the table, mostly in silence, 
sometimes talking about neutral things. 

Gil could see the deadness was still in Susan. He did not push. He made no 
attempt to touch her, not after the first night she was at home. Then he had 
put his hand on her arm. 

"Don't," she said, and the deadness in her voice stopped him. He sensed her 
sickness and was patient. 

After Susan had been home just over a week, Gil tried once again to break 
through her wall of silence. They were at the table. The meal was a good 
one, pork chops, potatoes, green beans, salad. 

"Don't you think it's time we started talking to each other, really 
talking?" Gil asked carefully. 

"If you like," Susan said. 

"Well...." He paused. She was not really with him. 

"How long are we going to go on like this?" he asked, not unkindly. She 
looked at him calmly. 

"I'm worried about you," he said. "You act as if you're dead or something." 

He reached for her hand. She did not break the touch. "I want you back, 
Susan. I want all of you back with me. I've thought about all this. I've 
thought about it until I felt sure my brain was going to pop out of my head. 
I want to say this. If you're blaming yourself for anything that happened, 
don't. It was my fault, all of it." 

Susan shook her head. She didn't like being reminded. 

"I've kicked myself, Suze. I've cursed myself as seven kinds of a fool." 

She looked at him curiously. It took a long time for her to understand that 
the shiny things on his cheeks were tears. Tears-real tears! Something moved 
deep inside her. She took her hand from under his and reached across the 
table to touch one of the tears with her finger. 

"I love you, Susan. I've always loved you and I always will. Can you believe 
that? I'd like us to forget what's happened. Can you?" 

She shook her head slowly. He bit his hp and looked down at his plate. 
Suddenly he leaped up and started to flee from the kitchen. His face! 

She caught his arm as he passed. A man shouldn't cry. She didn't want him to 
cry. 

"Gil," she said. "It's all right, Gil." 

He turned to her, his eyes wet. 

"It's all right," she repeated. 

He took her into his arms. She relaxed against him. He felt warm. The 
deadness was still in her. She didn't want him, not as a man. She only 
wanted to help him, to help ease his pain. She would help him, live with 
him, be a good wife to him, for, after all, he was all she had. There was 
nothing else for her in the world. 

Part of her was dead, killed in Tampa, burned away, destroyed. All the 
loveliness of a physical relationship with her husband was gone, and it 
would never return. But she could take care of him. 

They sat in the living room. Gil whispered to her. She told him briefly what 
she had done during the weeks she had been away. Some of it was a blank, but 
she told him all she could remember. 

When, finally, he took her hand and led her to the bedroom, she went. She 
would endure it, that was all. It was something she would have to accept in 
exchange for his protection, his companionship, his love. She removed her 
clothing and got into bed and he touched her tentatively. He lay on his side 
and pulled her against him. He held her there for a long, quiet time. His 
lips pressed the throbbing vein in her neck. 

"It's been a long time," he whispered. 

"Yes, it has." 

"Is it all right?" he asked. "I mean...." His hand closed over her breast 
and squeezed. She gave him her lips. She felt nothing. She went through the 
motions from memory. 

"You're all the woman I'll ever need," he said. He found her, probed deep. 
"If only I'd realized that long ago." 

"Hush!" she said. She acted it out for him. 

It wasn't bad. She had feared it would rouse bitterness in her, but it was 
only Gil and he was liking it. He was taking his pleasure from the body of 
his wife and that was as it should be. She gave of herself unselfishly. 

It was when he came driving into her, when it was too late to stop him, when 
he was making his swift, climactic lunges, that she remembered. 

She had not taken her pills with her when she left home. She hadn't had a 
pill since the Saturday morning, weeks ago, when they went to Tampa. She was 
completely unprotected. The realization came as a shock, a burst of 
something she had thought dead. 

In one flaming instant she was alive again, knowing a delicious intimacy she 
had known only once before in her life. Her innermost self was free! 

She pulled him close, moved against him, and the feeling completed itself in 
pulsing throbs from deep within her. She savored the knowledge that she 
could take from him and build life. It was true fulfillment. She was a 
woman! 

"Good?" Gil asked. 

"You'll never know," Susan said, laughing a smug, happy laugh. 

"I'm glad." 

"Maybe," she said. "But I've got a surprise for you, buster." 

Gil smiled to himself. That was his old Susan. "I haven't taken a pill in 
weeks," Susan said. "Whoops!" Gil said. 

Susan lay there, soaking in the pleasant knowledge. "I might be able to do 
something," she offered. "It might not be too late." She pushed at him, 
trying to get up. For a moment it seemed that he would let her go, then he 
clasped her tightly in his arms. 

"Hey, Gil?" 

"You've always wanted a baby," he said tenderly- 

"Oh, yes!" she said. 

"Then let's make a baby." 

"Do you want a baby?" She began to live again, fully, totally. He was 
relaxing inside her but he was there and his seed was in her. She might be, 
at that very moment, completing the first step in the miraculous generating 
machine within her. She might be making a baby! 

She began to live again. His waning virility aroused the slumbering passion 
in her, and it was good and clean because they were doing what nature 
wanted. She was thrilled. 

"I've always wanted a baby," Gil said. 

"Oh, Gil!" She stirred beneath him, wanting to rouse it, wanting it all now, 
wanting the whole bit. "Let's make sure," she said. "It might take more than 
once." 

"I'm willing!" he said, "but weak." 

"Can't you? Please?" 

It was lovely. It was more than lovely. It was deep, demanding, as he 
regained his rhythmic pace and lifted her into the voluptuous exaltation of 
bliss. 

When it was over they lay quietly. "I wonder if mother heard us," Gil said. 
"She'll think you were beating me or something. I'm a noisy lover, aren't 
I?" 

"The best in the world," Gil said, nuzzling her. "Really?" 

"Can I say something about-about Tampa?" 

"We're going to have to talk about it sometime." 

"Una was lousy," Gil said. "Really. She was too much for herself, grabbing, 
tearing. Not nearly as nice as you." 

"Thank you." 

Later she said, "Gil, since we've brought up the subject, I want to say that 
Tampa wasn't all your fault. I could have stopped it. I could have dragged 
you out of that apartment. I could have refused to go in the first place. I 
guess I secretly wanted to go. I think I've discovered something about 
myself. I've got some slut in me. I guess every woman has." 

She was thinking clearly for the first time in a long while. 

"It might even be good in the long run, what we did with the Radfords. It 
showed us what we might have become." 

"Yes," Gil said. 

"You're going to ask me sooner or later if I enjoyed it with Paul, aren't 
you?" 

"No, I-" 

"You will," said Susan. "So let's get it over with. Truthfully. I don't 
remember too much about that night. But I do remember this-the slut in me 
was working full time. It was grand. It was exciting. There's no use lying 
about it. I was a slut, a shameless, wanton slut. And I loved every minute 
of it." 

She had to put her hand over his mouth to keep him from talking. "But that 
was one particular night and one particular set of circumstances. It showed 
me that I like bed a little too well." 

"I love a sexy woman," Gil said, feeling uncomfortable, wanting to stop her. 

"I like bed so well that I'm going to make it rough on you, boy. You've just 
showed me how wonderful sex can really be when it's complete. I feel like a 
woman for the first time in my life, darling. You've made me feel that way 
and, having felt that way once, I know now that what I felt with Paul was 
nothing in comparison. I'm going to make you the finest baby in the world. 
If tonight didn't do it, then you can set aside tomorrow night, and the next 
night, and the night after that to complete the job. Do you understand?" 

"I hear and obey." He kissed her. "Are you finished?" 

"I'm finished." 

"Then shut up and go to sleep. You're going to need your strength." 

"I hear and obey," said Susan, closing her eyes, reaching for Gil's hand. He 
placed it, warm, natural, protective on her stomach. 


THE END
