Orgy On Wheels
by Don Elliott


SEX CAMP! 

The trailer-makers' PR men would rather have them called "mobile home 
parks," instead of the stigma-ridden, older name, "trailer camps." But the 
layout Bud chose for his honeymoon, while it was such a place, had a 
community sickness that had nothing to do with trailers or mobile homes or 
parks. The name of the game was lust, and it invaded the private, honeymoon 
life of Rosalie and her new husband, taking them over almost completely. Why 
did he go along with these awful people, she wondered. What had happened to 
the sweet guy she had married? And ten days after her bridal night, which 
she approached a virgin, she was ready for alchoholism, Lesbianism, suicide, 
or-or what? To quote William and Jerrye Breedlove, in their study, The 
Swinging Set: " ... approximately five million couples in the U.S. have at 
one time or another mutually agreed to exchange partners for sexual 
intercourse. Furthermore, one out of every ten couples under 35 will 
participate (or have participated) in spouse swapping. One out of every five 
couples, regardless of age, will question each other about this situation, 
and one out of ten couples will feel out their friends to see how they feel 
about it, hoping for sympathetic hearings. All these figures are 
increasing." This was a trend Rosalie would readily have believed.... 


CHAPTER ONE 

Rosalie had never imagined that she would be spending her wedding night in a 
trailer home. She had never really given much thought to the subject of her 
wedding night, anyway-except, of course, that she ultimately would have one, 
and that most likely it would be spent screwing in some elegantly appointed 
hotel room or perhaps in the rustic cabin of a honeymoon lodge. Her mind 
didn't think in terms of trailers. 

But now it would have to start doing just that. 

It was a strange feeling, sitting there in the front seat of a well-worn 
green Buick, knowing that she was on her way to begin married life. 

With Bud. 

With this stranger at her side. 

"Penny for your thoughts, baby," Bud said, with a warm grin. They were on 
the approach to the George Washington Bridge, heading westward out of New 
York. The camp where Bud kept his trailer was just on the other side, in New 
Jersey, overlooking the Hudson. 

"Is that all they're worth to you, Bud?" 

"It's all I can spare currently, my love." 

"Better bid higher," she told him. "Okay," he said. "I bid one penny and one 
kiss." 

"It's a deal. But don't make payment just now, or we'll crash into that 
bus." 

He braked the car to a crawl, despite the obvious annoyance of a honking 
motorist just behind him, and bent over to give her a quick but affectionate 
kiss. 

"I'll make payment on the penny later," he said. "You can make delivery on 
the thoughts right now." 

"I was thinking that I love you," she said. "Is that all?" 

"Isn't that enough, Bud?" 

"It's plenty, baby, Plenty." Rosalie leaned back, letting one arm dangle out 
of the car. It was a fine May afternoon, bright and cloudless. The sun was 
still high in the sky. The dark wall of the Palisades marched upriver to the 
horizon. 

Mrs. Rosalie Richards. 

She rolled the phrase silently through her mind, still unable to get used to 
it. Mrs. Bud Richards. 

She could call herself that too, if she pleased. 

How do you do, she thought. I'm Rosalie Richards, and this is my husband, 
Bud. 

An entire set of brand new concepts had to become part of her: This man is 
my husband. I am his wife. Tonight we will sleep in the same bed. He is 
allowed to look at me with my clothes of). He is allowed to touch my 
breasts. He is allowed to screw me.... 

She closed her eyes and tried to force the fears back into that dark 
compartment of her mind from which they had emerged. 

There's nothing to be afraid of, she told herself firmly. 

I love him and he loves me. And it's the natural thing for us to have sex 
together. Stop acting like a ten-year-old, Rosalie Hollander. Rosalie 
Richards, I mean. Richards, Richards, Richards. You have a new name, now. 

She was nineteen, going on twenty in a couple of months. It was a good age 
for getting married. She was out of her girlhood, but had not yet begun to 
settle into any inflexible molds of adulthood. Most of the girls Rosalie had 
grown up with and had gone to high school with were either married or 
engaged, by this time. She had been one of the last of the lot to snare a 
man, and though she had never felt any sense of inadequacy about this she 
knew it would have begun to trouble her if she had remained single another 
six months or a year, because by then her girl friends would be having their 
first babies, and the pain of singleness would have been that much greater 
for her. 

She had remained a virgin longer than the other girls, too. It had been more 
a matter of fear than morality. She was afraid-afraid of the pain of 
initiation, afraid of being a bad lover, afraid of getting pregnant. So 
while the other girls had begun wearing knowing smiles, had begun talking 
with familiarity about diaphragms and orgasms and The Pill, Rosalie had 
remained primly on the sidelines. 

All that had been swept away, now, by Bud Richards, by this muscular 
stranger who had pushed his way into her life and who-five weeks after she 
had first met him-was her husband. 

Bud braked as they reached the toll booth. 

"Do me a favor, sweet. I need half a buck for the toll, and I'm out of 
change." 

Rosalie grinned and took two quarters from her purse. For a date to have 
asked for money to pay a toll would have been a breach of etiquette-but it 
was her husband who had asked, and Rosalie found a special pleasure in 
fulfilling his request. 

They passed through the booth and on under two underpasses, turning off 
finally to the right. 

"Is the trailer camp very far from here, Bud?" 

"Six minutes." 

"And how many seconds?" she asked mischievously. 

"I never timed it that fine," Bud said. "Shame on you. I thought you 
believed in being precise." 

He laughed. "So sue me." 

Bud slipped his right arm around her shoulder to caress her, while holding 
the wheel casually between two fingers. His hand slipped a little further 
around her, coming to rest over the full roundness of her right breast. 

Rosalie felt a little quiver of anticipation, and she glanced down at the 
strong, tanned fingers holding her flesh. Bud had never been anything but 
gentlemanly during their brief courtship. They had begun kissing early, of 
course, and the kisses had grown increasingly passionate, and by the third 
week she was letting him touch her breasts-clothed, of course. He hadn't 
attempted to go any further. By that time they knew they were getting 
married, and he was willing to wait another couple of weeks and begin their 
physical relationship the traditional way. 

And now they had been man and wife for three hours. It had been a small 
wedding, just a handful of close friends and relatives. Bud's "people" were 
all on the West Coast, and he hadn't even invited them. And anyway, it 
didn't seem appropriate for there to be a big wedding when the principals 
had met only five weeks before. There wasn't time for the proper 
preparations. 

So there had been a simple ceremony, and then a simple reception, and then 
Rosalie and Bud had climbed into his car to drive across the river to the 
trailer camp that would be their home. 

The highway was ugly and cluttered with filling stations. But suddenly Bud 
took a sharp right, traveled a couple of hundred yards, and emerged at the 
main entrance of a place that proclaimed itself to be the River View Mobile 
Home Court. 

"I've got to remember," Rosalie said. "They aren't trailers. They're 'mobile 
homes.'" 

"Don't fuss about that. We all call them trailers anyway. It's just the 
public relations guys who go in for the fancy names." 

The trailer camp was crowded. More than a hundred trailers, of all sizes, 
shapes, and colors, were arrayed in long lanes. Bud made a left turn, going 
around the outside of the motor court, and pulled the car into a fenced-off 
parking area behind a row of trailers. 

"All out," he said. 

Their luggage was piled on the back seat and in the trunk of the car-four 
suitcases containing everything Rosalie had chosen to take with her from her 
old life, from evening gowns down to a beloved stuffed giraffe. Rosalie 
opened the rear door and began to haul one of the smaller suitcases out, but 
Bud caught her by the wrist. 

"The luggage can wait," he said. "Let me show you the trailer, first." 

She smiled tensely. "All right, Bud." He held her hand as they walked up a 
lane of trailers. Many of them had little porches, and people were sitting 
out on them, sunning themselves. They waved to Bud as he passed by. He waved 
back without stopping. 

As they passed a blue trailer with a white stripe, a woman emerged, her arms 
full of laundry. She was a tall blonde, just on the wrong side of thirty, 
with keen, alert eyes and full lips. She wore black toreador pants that 
highlighted the lush contours of her hips and buttocks, and a tight, white 
jersey that seemed almost ready to burst under the impetus of the 
astonishing out-thrust breasts of her. 

"You there, Bud," she said. Her voice was deep and throaty. "That's the 
little lady, is it?" 

"You guessed it," Bud said. He turned to Rosalie. "Want you to meet one of 
your new neighbors, sweet. Paula Burkhart. Paula, meet my wife, Rosalie." 

"I've heard a lot about you," Paula said sweetly. 

"Good or bad?" Rosalie asked. 

"All good. I'm wildly jealous. You've got a hell of a fine hunk of manflesh 
there, Rosalie." 

"Don't get worried," Bud said quickly. A little too quickly, maybe. "Paula's 
married, and her husband owns a shotgun. She's pulling your leg." 

Rosalie smiled uncertainly at the older woman. The newlyweds moved on. 

"Here it is," he said, reaching the next trailer. "Thirty-five feet by eight 
feet, and every square inch of it ours. How do you like it?" 

"It's-beautiful, Bud." 

It was, in a way. It had slanting ends and a little sloping roof over its 
center third, and a porch with steps and a pretty iron railing. If you 
looked at it quickly, you could almost think it was a house instead of an 
elongated metal box divided into rooms. The color was approximately 
turquoise, shading off somewhat into green. An arrow of deep aqua ran the 
entire length of the trailer. 

"Home sweet home," Bud murmured. "Be it ever so humble." 

"I like it, Bud. I really do." 

"I hope so, baby. I want you to like it." 

Then, without warning, he bent and scooped her off her feet, one arm under 
her firm buttocks and the other around her shoulders. She laughed shrilly as 
he carried her up the four steps of the porch and opened the door. She was 
not a small girl, but he carried her as though she were weightless. He 
stepped in, over the threshold, and let her down slowly. When her feet were 
touching the floor, she turned, pressing her body against him, grinding her 
loins against his, rubbing her breasts into his chest. His arms circled her 
like steel bands, pulling her flat against him with crushing force, and 
then, after a moment, he released her. They looked deep into each other's 
eyes for a long moment. Her nipples had turned hard within her bra and her 
cunt felt hot. 

Bud said, "It's going to be great, baby." 

"It's going to be marvelous, Bud. I know it will. I wish I could tell you 
how happy I am right now." 

"What do you think of the place?" 

"I haven't even looked at it yet, darling." 

He switched on the lights. She turned and gave a little gasp of pleasure as 
she saw how attractive and comfortable it looked. They were standing in a 
sort of living room, narrow but fairly long, with a miniature couch, two 
small chairs, and a lamp. The sofa was brown and yellow with silver streaks, 
the chairs orange, the throw-pillows aqua. Venetian blinds covered the two 
windows, but they were bordered prettily with tan draperies studded with 
brown and orange abstract shapes. The entire effect was a cozily charming 
one. Rosalie liked it at once. 

She moved on into a compact kitchen with turquoise appliances, a half-size 
sink, an electric oven, a cooking range, a small refrigerator, and a dinette 
set that could seat four. A bathroom adjoined it, and then she was in the 
bedroom, complete with double bed, two dressers, lamp table, and mirror. In 
various alcoves through the trailer, Bud had installed cupboards and a 
bookcase, doing a fairly professional job of it. 

The trailer was cramped, certainly no doubt about that. It wasn't any 
ten-room mansion. But it was roomier than Rosalie had expected, really, from 
Bud's descriptions of it. 

And, after all, they wouldn't necessarily be living in it for the rest of 
their lives. There were bigger model trailers available for people with 
families'-models up to nearly twice as big as this one, Bud said. Though of 
course you needed a special permit and a truck to move them from one place 
to another, so they didn't have the full mobility of the ordinary trailer. 

"Now that you've seen it," Bud said, "You can tell me. Like it? Be honest, 
now." 

"It's a palace, Bud. A regular palace. I'm going to love it here. I just 
know I will." 

And then she was in his arms again, cozy in his embrace, and his hand was 
working its way between their tightly pressed bodies to cup the roundness of 
her thrusting breasts, to hold them tight. 

She felt his big body trembling, and she knew that he was quivering with 
desire, that he could hardly restrain himself, that he wanted her, wanted to 
make her really his wife this very moment, and despite her fear she wanted 
it too- 

There was a knock at the door. Bud released her and looked around doubtfully 
behind him. He started toward the door. "Who is it?" 

"Giggles." 

"We aren't disturbing anything, are we, you two lovebirds?" 

It was Paula Burkhart's voice. Bud glanced at Rosahe. She shrugged. "No," he 
said. He opened the door. 

A group of about a dozen of the trailer-camp people was standing outside, 
with Paula at the head of the assemblage. A man next to her was beamingly 
holding forth an ice bucket from which the red tinfoil of a champagne bottle 
protruded. 

Paula said, "We were planning to give a party to celebrate the wedding. But 
then we decided that maybe you two wouldn't really want all kinds of noise 
and hullabaloo tonight, that maybe you just wanted to be with each other and 
not the rest of us characters. So we just chipped in and bought you a bottle 
of champagne. With the best wishes of everybody in the camp." 

Rosalie felt tears crowding into her eyes. There had already been plenty of 
champagne for both of them today, but it was still a touching gesture. 

She and Bud thanked their well-wishers. The crowd of trailer camp people 
melted away, and Bud carried the bucket inside, setting it on the kitchen 
table. 

He said, "It's almost seven o'clock. Dinnertime. 

Are you very hungry?" 

"Not really. Not after all the junk I ate at the wedding. Those canapes, and 
the little frankfurters-" 

"Same here. I feel stuffed. I was figuring we'd go out to eat somewhere 
tonight, but there really isn't any need for it, is there?" 

She shook her head. "No, there isn't." 

He hesitated, although she knew what he wanted to say. "Tell you what," he 
said finally. "Suppose let's you and me have some of this champagne, by way 
of finishing off the celebration. And then we can call it a day." 

He was looking straight at her breasts. "That's a fine idea, Bud." 

He began to open the bottle, telling her where the glasses were. He had no 
champagne glasses, but there were a couple of wine glasses, and Rosalie put 
those out. The cork erupted from the bottle with a majestic pop. Bud filled 
the glasses, and pushed one toward her. 

"To us," he said. 

"To us," she repeated softly. 

She sipped the champagne. It was cold and dry, far better than the stuff 
they had had at their wedding reception. It went down easily, and soon they 
were on their second glass apiece. 

Rosalie eyed the man who was now her husband-this man she had not even known 
five weeks before. They had met at a concert, an open-air concert in Central 
Park. She had gone with a girl friend, and he had come alone, and their 
blankets were next to each other, and somehow they had begun to talk about 
music, although neither of them knew very much beyond the names of Bach and 
Beethoven and Mozart and Chopin and Brahms, and then, before the 
intermission, Rosalie had sensed something happening, and so had her girl 
friend, because she had tactfully withdrawn and left the two of them 
together. And that had been the beginning- 

So now I'm Mrs. Bud Richards, she thought in wonder, as she sipped her 
champagne. 

And he was still a stranger to her. She knew so little about him. That he 
was twenty-seven, yes, and that he had been born in Oregon and had gone to 
college in the Far West, and that he was six feet, one inch tall and weighed 
one hundred ninety-five, and that he was handsome and intelligent and 
understanding, and that he had been in the Army for a couple of years, and 
that he had traveled around a lot, and that he had bought himself this 
trailer two and a half years ago and had been all over the United States in 
it, stopping a few months at a time in various trailer camps, and that he 
had come to New Jersey in early spring. She knew that he was some kind of 
electronics technician who worked on long-range missiles, and who was likely 
to be shifted around the country from one missile base to another, 
practically without warning. And she knew-or hoped-that he loved her. 

That was all she knew of him. But those were only externals. The real Bud 
Richards, the person who lay behind the biographical facts-he was still 
unknown to her. 

She finished her third glass of champagne. Bud was already done with his. 

"There's at least another round apiece in the bottle," he said. "Want it?" 

"No, thanks." 

"It'll only go flat if we don't drink it." 

"You have it, then." She smiled. "I'm getting giddy already. Lightheaded. 
And I don't want to be crocked tonight. I want to be sober. I want to 
remember every minute of it, Bud." 

He nodded gently. "You're afraid, aren't you?" 

"A little." 

"Don't be." 

"I can't help it, Bud. All brides are afraid on their wedding nights, aren't 
they?" 

"I suppose. At least, all brides who-who aren't experienced." 

"Like me." 

"Like you." 

He rose from the table, jamming the cork back into the champagne bottle 
after a fashion, and putting it away in the refrigerator. He looks so tall, 
Rosalie thought, with his head practically touching that low ceiling. So 
strong, so handsome. 

My husband. 

"Ready for bed?" he asked. "Yes," she said, as firmly as she could. 

 CHAPTER TWO 

He turned off the kitchen lights, and they made their way down to the other 
end of the trailer, where the bedroom was. "I'll go get the little 
suitcase," he said. "The one with your toilet things." 

"Should I come with you?" 

"If you want to, honey." 

They made their way through the darkness to the parking area. The trailer 
camp seemed lively at night. There was the sound of a dozen radios, and a 
woman's laughter somewhere, and the shuffling of a deck of cards. 

He drew the suitcase out of the car and they went back to their trailer, and 
into the bedroom. She unsnapped the grip and began to take out the things 
she had set aside for immediate use-toothbrush, washcloth, towel, comb and 
brush, make-up. She carried them into the bathroom. 

"I'll undress in here," she said. 

"Uh-uh," Bud said from the bedroom. He came into the bathroom. "Let's have 
no hiding from each other. I'll undress you myself." 

She felt a tremor of nervousness. She forced it away. "All right, darling." 

He led her gently back into the bedroom. Rosalie had changed out of her 
wedding gown before leaving the reception, and now she was wearing a simple, 
white blouse with an open collar and quarter-length sleeves. Through the 
sheerness of the blouse, the outlines of the bra were visible, supporting 
high, full breasts. She was just above middle height, and abundantly endowed 
physically without seeming chunky or heavy in any way. 

The V-neck of the blouse opened to show a few square inches of pale, creamy 
flesh, then dropped severely to her waist. A wide, leather belt held her 
checked skirt in place. Her finely tapered legs were clad in nylons that 
enhanced the supple loveliness of her calves and thighs. 

Her heart was racing furiously. She could feel its jackhammer pounding 
against the cage of her ribs. 

She sat down on the bed, pulling her legs up. Her skirt rose above her knee, 
exposing the white flesh of her thigh above her stockings. Automatically, 
she reached out to tug the skirt back into place. But Bud put his hand over 
hers, stopping her. 

"Modest?" he asked, grinning. "I can't help it, Bud. You spend almost twenty 
years of your life thinking one way about your body, and then in one night 
you're expected to think an entirely different way-" 

"I know," he said. "Would it be better-if we waited another night?" 

She saw the answer on his face. She said quickly, "No, Bud. That wouldn't be 
fair. Tonight's our wedding night. Just-be gentle-" 

"Of course, baby." 

His hand was on her knee, now, running up the stockinged leg to the bare 
region at her thigh. She shivered a little at the touch of his hand. 

"I'll try not to be afraid, Bud." 

"There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all." 

He leaned forward and put his mouth to hers, his tongue rimming her lips, 
then working its way into her mouth. She felt a quiver of hot excitement 
beginning in her loins and working its way up her entire body. It was 
starting now, she thought. The love-making was beginning. Her womanhood was 
about to begin. 

She put her hands on his biceps, feeling the strength in them, then caressed 
the back of his head, digging her fingers into the thick, brown hair. His 
hands wandered under her skirt, finding the elastic waistband of her 
panties, slipping beneath it to touch the smooth skin of her belly. 

She did not attempt to interfere as he drew the panties down, over her broad 
hips, over the long, graceful curves of her legs. With practiced skill he 
unsnapped her garters, stroking her legs, holding them up as he peeled the 
nylons off. She leaned back on the bed, pushing herself up with elbows and 
feet, as he drew off her half-slip, and then, opening the wide belt, the 
skirt as well. She was naked below the waist now except for the garter-belt, 
and a moment later that, too, had joined the heap of discarded clothing. 

Her face flamed as he looked down, smiling, at her naked loins, and let his 
fingers rest lightly on the gentle curve of her belly, then drift lower, to 
the dark triangle of her pussy, then to the soft flesh of her inner thighs. 
He got his hands underneath her, cupping the firm ripeness of her buttocks, 
and she felt strange sensations rippling through her body. 

"You're so lovely!" he whispered in a harsh, excited voice. "Beautiful!" 

"Bud-I love you so much-" 

His hands were at work on the buttons of her blouse, now, undoing them one 
by one, and when the blouse hung open she shrugged out of it. He reached for 
the hooks of her bra, but Rosalie grinned impishly and got to them ahead of 
him, unsnapping them quickly and dipping her shoulders so the cups fell away 
from her breasts. She knew she had good breasts, high and firm and round, 
standing out from her body without the need of any artificial supports. Bud 
was staring in delight and fascination at them. He held his hands above them 
for a moment, then hungrily wrapped the strong fingers around the firm 
globes of flesh. 

She was nude, now. And loving it. 

Her breasts began to rise and fall rapidly as he gripped them, squeezing 
gentry. Rosalie felt the nipples stiffening to his touch, beginning to 
throb, rising like tiny mounds of rock, standing out darkly against the 
creamy-white hue of her full breasts. He murmured throaty love-words as he 
bent his head to kiss, first one rigid little nipple, then the other, then 
the hollow of her navel. The fear was still in her, but it was fading 
rapidly as he caressed her, stroked her, worshipped her nakedness with his 
lips and with his fingertips. 

She lay back, feeling the cool linen of the bed against her back and 
buttocks. Suddenly Bud was no longer holding her, but was standing, 
undressing rapidly, practically tearing his clothing off. He was naked 
almost at once, and Rosalie stared at his ruggedly masculine body with an 
interest that was almost detached, as though he were some naked statue in a 
museum and not a man of flesh and blood who in just a very few moments was 
going to- 

He was joining her now, in the bed. 

Naked and trying to be unafraid, she offered him her lips, her breasts, her 
loins, and he pressed his hard body against her dinging softness, his tongue 
thrusting deep into her mouth, then withdrawing, caressing an earlobe, 
tickling her cheek. She smiled, relaxing, and once again his hands were on 
her breasts, toying with them, exciting them, and she felt the warmth inside 
her, the eagerness. 

"I want you, Bud. Now." 

"Don't rush it, baby." 

"I'm ready! I'm ready!" 

His hands stroked her thighs. 

"Don't hurt me, Bud." 

"I won't," he promised. 

Then his weight was heavy upon her, and she opened herself to him, pulling 
her thighs apart and clamping her eyes shut and steeling herself for what 
would happen, and then she felt it happening, slowly, gently, and there was 
the instant of searing pain, as of a white-hot sword being thrust into her 
body. But the agony passed almost before she could feel it, and after that 
there was no pain, only a kind of discomfort, and she moved against him, and 
he was holding her tight, with his face buried in the hollow of her throat 
and then with his teeth lightly gripping her shoulder, and she moved with 
him, waiting for the frenzied explosions of ecstasy, waiting for the savage 
liberation that she was expecting. 

She was too frightened, too apprehensive, to experience anything like a real 
culmination. Instead there was a slowly spreading sensation of warmth, of 
relief, of satisfaction, as she moved her body in rhythm to his urgent 
assaults, and she smiled and cried out in pleasure, and suddenly his body 
was quivering and his breath was coming in hoarse, ragged, panting bursts, 
and she held him tight, her fingers on his back digging deep into the solid 
muscles along his spine, and he began to move so excitedly that it hurt her, 
but she did not complain, knowing that this was the wonderful moment for 
him, and he let out his breath in three sighing gasps and the tension of his 
stiff legs and gripping arms was replaced by a slackness, a relaxation, and 
she opened her eyes, -rimmed with tears of pleasure, and smiled up at him, 
and he smiled back, kissing away the tears, and then kissing each perfect 
nipple, and she pulled the covers up over him. 

"I love you," she whispered. "Don't ever stop saying that." They settled 
down for the night, his face pillowed into the soft high mounds of her 
bosom. 

Within a short time his calm, even breathing told her that he was asleep. 
She kept her arm around him, almost protectively. For all his strength, all 
his muscular power, he seemed almost child-like as he slept now against her 
breasts. Rosalie felt overwhelming happiness. The moment she had feared had 
come and gone, and though there had not been the fantastic ecstasy she had 
heard was possible, there had not been any real disappointment either. She 
was a woman now. She was a wife. She was happy. 

She closed her eyes and let sleep roll down over her like a billowing wave. 

Some time during the night, she awoke, and Bud was awake too, and they made 
love again, in a more relaxed, less intense way, and this time the pleasure 
she felt in it was greater. Then she slept again, and only the morning 
sunlight streaming in through the openings in the blind could pull her away 
from deep, satisfied sleep. 

Rosalie opened her eyes. Bud was awake already, sitting up in bed with his 
hands clasped behind his head. 

"Morning," he said. 

"Good morning, darling. Been awake long?" 

"Five minutes, maybe. Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?" 

"You did." 

"Can I tell you again?" 

"If you feel like it." 

"I feel like it," he said. He took her in his arms, crushing the tender 
mounds of her breasts against the firm muscles of his chest, and gave her a 
bearhug. 

"I love you, Mrs. Richards." 

"The same to you, Mr. Richards." 

"You sleep well, honey?" 

"Never better in my life. Now I know what's been missing all these years. A 
man in my bed." 

"Funny. I never felt that way about having a man in my bed," he said. 

"I hope not." She pushed back the covers and stretched and yawned, agreeably 
conscious of the way the gesture made her breasts rise and fill out. "What's 
on the schedule for today, darling?" 

"A couple of showers, first, I guess. Then breakfast. Then nothing but 
relaxation. There's a place near here where we can swim. We could go on a 
picnic. We could just hang around the camp and introduce you to people. We 
can do lots of things, Rosalie." 

"Will I have an hour or two to unpack my stuff?" she asked. 

"I think that can be managed," he said generously. "Suppose you go take your 
shower, now. I'll see about getting some breakfast organized." 

"But cooking's my job now, Bud! You aren't a bachelor any more." 

"Let me do the honors this morning," he said. "I know my way around this 
kitchen better than you do. You grab a shower." 

She left the bed, relishing the uninhibited way she could walk around naked 
in front of him, and padded across the floor toward the bathroom. As she 
passed him, he tapped her buttocks playfully. The flesh jiggled. She went 
into the bathroom. 

"You'd better come show me how to work the shower," she said. 

"Just like any other kind of shower," he called to her. "You turn the 
handle." 

"Where does the water come from?" 

"I'm hooked in with the trailer camp's facilities. They supply water, 
electricity, gas, sewage, and all the rest. You don't think I pay forty-two 
dollars a month just to park here, do you?" 

"Oh," she said. "I didn't think much about it." 

She stepped into the shower and got the water running, scrubbing herself 
down thoroughly. Life in this trailer would be fine, she thought. It was 
just big enough for two. A cold shiver ran down her spine as she realized 
that many other girls must have shared the double bed, many other girls must 
have had showers there in the morning while Bud prepared breakfast. Jealousy 
assailed her. 

Don't be a stupid little goose, she told herself crossly. You mustn't be 
jealous of Bud's past. He's twenty-seven, handsome, and virile. There would 
have to be something wrong with him if he'd stayed pure all that time. Just 
accept the fact that maybe you were a virgin last night, but he wasn't, and 
forget the whole thing. 

Toweling herself dry, Rosalie left the shower and slipped on her robe. She 
went into the kitchen. Bud, wearing a plaid bathrobe, was busily cooking 
some bacon. 

"You look like an expert," she said. 

"I am. Sit down and wait to be fed." 

"I insist on doing my domestic duties." 

"You'll have plenty of time for being a housewife later," he told her. He 
poured two tall glasses of orange juice. "Let me have my last fling as a 
housekeeper this morning, okay?" 

Breakfast was good. Afterward, while she cleaned up the dishes and began to 
find out where they went, Bud dressed and went out to the car to bring the 
rest of her luggage in. For the next couple of hours, they both worked 
busily. Bud showed her how the trailer's closets were set up-he had done an 
efficient job, and there was plenty of room for her things-and then he 
helped her get moved in. By eleven, she was completely settled down, and her 
empty suitcases were under the bed for storage. 

"Let's stroll around camp for a while," he suggested. "You might as well get 
to know your way around." 

They went outside. It was a Monday morning, and the camp was quiet. A few 
women were busily stringing laundry on lines that extended from one trailer 
to another. Children toddled around. Very few men were in sight. 

"How many trailers are there?" Rosalie asked. 

"The capacity here is one-twenty or so," Bud said. "The place is filled most 
of the time." 

"People always moving in and out?" 

He shook his head. "About half the people here are hard-core residents. That 
is, they've been living here two years or more, and have no immediate plans 
to move. Maybe two-thirds of the rest are medium-termers. They've been here 
a couple of months and may stay a couple of months more, or another six or 
eight. The others are just wanderers. They pull in for two or three days, or 
maybe a week or two, then move along to some other place." 

"I never dreamed so many people lived in trailers." 

Bud shrugged. "Has its advantages-especially if you're a guy like me who may 
be working in New Jersey one week and Cape Kennedy the next. Buying and 
selling houses on short notice can be a nuisance." They walked hand in hand 
up the lane. Paula Burkhart appeared on the porch of her trailer, carrying a 
boy of about three, and waved at them. Bud waved back. Rosalie's face 
reddened as she realized what Paula must be thinking about just then. 

Bud went on, "A lot of retired people own trailers, too. They stay up north 
during the warm months, so they can live near their children and 
grandchildren, and then come winter they just drive down to Florida for a 
few months. And a lot of trailer-camp folks are just people who got tired of 
hunting around for apartments, and decided to find a way of living that 
would give them complete freedom. I like it." 

"I think I'm going to, too," Rosalie said. 

They strolled through the camp. The trailers were twelve to fifteen feet 
apart, and each one was connected to utility lines. At one end of the camp 
there was a recreation area-shuffleboard, a badminton court, a handball 
wall, even a small wading pool. A small frame building of the conventional 
kind, looking oddly out of place among all these dwellings without 
foundations, was the administration building of the trailer camp, where the 
mail was delivered every morning and where the new arrivals registered. 

"And over there, behind those trees-that's the highway," Bud said. "You can 
be in Manhattan in ten minutes. It's a snap, living this way. Why-" 

"Hey! Bud! Bud Richards!" 

Bud and Rosalie turned. A tall young man, bigger even than Bud, was coming 
toward them, hand outstretched, a broad grin on his face. 

Bud laughed. "Hey, fella, long time no see!" 

"Not since Albuquerque, hey?" 

"I guess not. A whole year and a half!" 

Rosalie glanced puzzledly at the newcomer. Bud said hastily, "Rosalie, I 
want you to meet Ted Martin, who was a buddy of mine at another trailer 
camp. Following me around or something, Ted?" 

"Well, I blew in eastward to see how things were doing," Martin said. "Saw 
your name in the register last night when I checked in, but it was so late T 
didn't want to bother you." Martin glanced meaningfully at the ring on 
Rosalie's finger. "That's a mighty pretty woman you lassoed for yourself, 
partner. Been married long?" 

"Yesterday," Bud admitted. 

"Yesterday!" Martin guffawed. "Hell, man, still time to congratulate you, 
then! Mind if I kiss the bride?" 

"That's up to her," Bud said. "Rosalie?" 

A bit confused and not knowing what was expected of her, Rosalie presented 
her cheek. Martin kissed it with delicacy. He shook Bud's hand and said, "I 
never thought they'd catch you. But I must say you did a good job of 
picking. How long you been settled here, anyway?" 

"Couple of months," Bud said. "You come in alone?" 

Martin nodded. "But I'm not exactly starving for company. Got a nice deal 
working already. I'd cut you in on it, too, except you seem to be taken care 
of." 

"What kind of deal?" 

"Trailer next to mine," Martin said. "Two wandering fillies from Illinois. 
They started in California last summer and have been working their way 
across the country. Tall redhead and medium-sized blonde. You know them?" 

Bud shrugged. "Not particularly." 

"Well, I guess I woke them up when I hitched my trailer up last night. They 
came out to inspect." Martin glanced uncomfortably at Rosalie, then said, 
"The redhead came aboard to get acquainted. Damn near raped me. It looks 
like a steady thing, only I feel guilty about the poor blonde getting left 
out of all the fun." 

Bud said, "I'd be happy to oblige under other circumstances. But I'm sort of 
tied up." 

"So I see." 

"Well, stay loose, man. I'm over in Lane Four, if you want to drop around 
later," Bud said. "You remember the job. Turquoise with the aqua stripe." 

They left him and walked on. When they had gone a few paces, Rosalie said, 
"I don't think I like him." 

"Ted? Oh, he's okay. Kind of uninhibited, that's all. A natural-born 
bachelor type. But he enjoys life." 

"I'll bet he does." Rosalie frowned. "Does that sort of thing happen in 
trailer camps often? People getting together like that right away?" 

Bud looked uncomfortable. "Well, the hard-core residents are mostly married 
folk. Like us. But the floating population always includes some single types 
out for fun. A couple of traveling gals, maybe two or three guys bunking 
together. And everything's pretty informal in these places. I guess I'd have 
to say there's a lot of after-hours cutting up here. So long as they don't 
wake anybody up, I can't see how it's any of our business." 

Rosalie nodded and let the subject drop. But she felt troubled. The free and 
easy life of the trailer camp people was alien to her. And she couldn't help 
but thinking that until the day before Bud had been a floating bachelor very 
much like Ted Martin. How many times, Rosalie wondered, had Bud pulled into 
a strange trailer camp and accepted hospitality from a free-wheeling 
bachelor girl? And-she wondered edgily-would she be able to keep him from 
missing his old, free life, once the honeymoon bliss started to wear off a 
little? 

She didn't know. 

But suddenly what had seemed like a cheery, friendly, informal place had 
taken on a new and sinister atmosphere. With people this close together, 
there could be little privacy. And in a floating population, morals wouldn't 
count for much. Not only among the drifting bachelors, either. Suppose the 
married people wound up in the wrong beds from time to time? That Paula 
Burkhart, for instance. She was older than Bud, but she was a sexy woman who 
didn't look overly troubled by moral qualms. With a handsome bachelor like 
Bud living next door to her for a couple of months, temptation must have 
been great for both of them. 

What if they had given in? 

And what if temptation struck again? 

Rosalie firmed her lips and thrust her arm through her husband's. She told 
herself that she was inventing all kinds of improbable disasters. She loved 
Bud and Bud loved her, and there would be no snags in their marriage. Not if 
she could help it. 

 CHAPTER THREE 

The honeymoon week moved pleasantly along. 

That was all the time off Bud had been able to get-just one week then, and 
the promise of a second week some time late in the summer. The missile plant 
where he worked was on round-the-clock shifts now, and nobody could be 
spared for long, not even to take a honeymoon. 

Rosalie didn't mind. As long as she had that one blessed week with Bud-- 

The weather held up magnificently for them. It was bright, sunny, summery 
every day. They rose early and got out of the camp after breakfast. One day 
they went picnicking at a state park not far from the camp. A second day, 
they drove into Manhatten for lunch and a show. A third day, Bud took her to 
the amusement park atop the Palisades, and they cut up like a pair of 
twelve-year-olds as they zoomed along in the roller coaster and were whirled 
through the fun house. 

They would eat dinner at a restaurant near the trailer camp, except for the 
nights when Rosalie cooked for them. She was no great shakes in the kitchen, 
but she was learning fast, and Bud was tolerant. After dinner, there were 
usually parties in the camp, gathered around one of the bigger trailers. One 
or two nights they went to the drive-in movie theater four miles down the 
road. 

The parties helped Rosalie get to know many of the other trailer camp people 
well. By the end of the week, she knew some two dozen of them. Some were 
interesting and likeable people. Others just weren't her type at all. 

In the latter category fell her next door neighbors, Paula and Jim Burkhart. 
There was something about both of them that aroused Rosalie's suspicions. 
Paula wore too much makeup and she was too fond of dressing in a manner that 
would show off the voluptuous bigness of her breasts. Either she favored 
sweaters and polo shirts four sizes too small, or else she wore low-necked 
playsuits over whose scooping tops her heavy breasts seemed about to spill. 
She drank too much, also-there was always the smell of liquor on her 
breath-and her general attitude was a slovenly coarse one. 

Jim Burkhart seemed cut from the same cloth. A tall, skinny, gloomy-looking 
man in his early forties, he was a drinker too, a teller of dirty jokes, a 
fondler of other people's wives. So far he had kept his hands off Rosalie, 
but she had seen him casually walk up behind one of the other women-Joy 
Rob-bins, from Lane Three-and put his hands over her breasts for a nice 
feel. Joy hadn't been in any hurry to push the hands away, either. But then, 
ten minutes later, Burkhart had tried the same stunt on prim Lois Hunter 
from Lane Five, and got a substantial jab in the ribs. 

Another one that Rosalie didn't like much was Bud's friend from Albuquerque, 
Ted Martin. Martin had all but set up housekeeping with his Illinois 
redhead, but that didn't seem to prevent him from casting a speculative eye 
at just about every other woman in the camp-Rosalie included. 

There were others in the camp who had the same free-and-easy attitude toward 
sex and morals that these people appeared to have. Rosalie tried not to seem 
stuffy or prudish. But she was uncomfortable among them. 

On the plus side, there were some people she genuinely liked. Paul Morton, 
for one-a gentle, fortyish bachelor who wrote articles and books about 
nature. He lived by himself in a small trailer covered with potted plants, 
kept a cat and a pet duck, smiled at children, and always had a good word 
for everyone. He spread warmth wherever he went. 

And there was a girl in Lane Two, Bonnie Campbell-a big-eyed, pretty girl in 
her twenties, who was traveling around the country with a girl friend and 
who seemed to take a deep, friendly interest in Rosalie. Rosalie got along 
well with her. Bonnie didn't seem to be the sort of bachelor girl who was 
forever looking for men to sleep with. She read a lot, and owned some good 
records of Beethoven and Brahms and other serious composers. 

The week moved along. Rosalie began to associate names and faces, began to 
learn her way around the trailer camp. It was starting to seem like home to 
her. And, every night, there was the cozy double bed, there were Bud's 
strong arms around her, there were the rhythms and joys of love. She was 
beginning to enjoy lovemaking more fully. Bud was a skilled lover, and was 
bringing her along toward deeper fulfillment each time they made love. 

It was Saturday night. She had been living in the trailer camp a full week. 
Sunday was their "anniversary"-the first weekly marriage anniversary. 

A big party was scheduled for that evening. The Satterfields were giving it, 
and practically the whole trailer camp could be expected to show up at one 
time or another during the evening. Frank and Peggy Satterfield were a 
handsome, apparently well-to-do couple in their early forties. Although they 
had no children, their trailer was the biggest one in the camp, a monstrous 
sixty-footer. According to Bud, the Satterfields lived off their investments 
and spent all their time traveling around the United States, Canada, and 
Mexico, parking their trailer anyplace that caught their fancy. They had 
been in the River View camp for more than a month, and had quickly made 
their trailer the social center of the camp. 

Saturday afternoon, Rosalie and Bud had been out swimming and picnicking. 
They returned to the trailer camp about six. Rosalie had worn her wet 
bathing suit on the return trip, and she peeled it off and hung it up in the 
bathroom to dry. Bud came up behind her, running his hands along her bare 
buttocks affectionately. 

She lifted his hands to her breasts and squeezed her own over them. 

"What time does the party start, darling?" 

"Doors open at half-past eight. It's fashionable to get there around nine, 
though." 

"Gives me some time to set my hair. I want to look my best tonight." 

"You better watch out," Bud warned. "There are always plenty of prowling 
wolves at these parties." 

"You'll protect me, won't you?" Rosalie asked. 

"Sure, baby. I won't let them gobble you up." He nibbled the nape of her 
neck and gave her breasts a final squeeze. Rosalie smiled fondly at him over 
her shoulder. It was so wonderful, she thought, to be married. Especially to 
be married to someone like Bud. To live like this, without false modesty, 
two people in the most complete kind of intimacy-that was marvelous, Rosalie 
thought. 

She put on her best dress, a rather sexy affair with a plunging neckline and 
tight hips. It drew a whistle from Bud when he saw it. They went out for 
dinner, to a fairly good steak house some ten miles away. Bud had a couple 
of drinks with his meal, and Rosalie was a little worried about the drive 
back, but he managed it without any difficulties. 

It was quarter to nine by the time they pulled into the parking area. 
Already, the sound of laughter and music could be heard coming from the big 
green trailer in Lane Six. Hand in hand, Rosalie and Bud went toward it. 

The party was well under way. A knot of trailer people, drinks in hand, were 
blocking the entrance to the Satterfield home, and Bud had to shoulder his 
way through with a little flurry of "Excuse me's." Inside, Rosalie found 
herself in a spacious and attractively furnished living room, almost twenty 
feet long. There were original oil paintings on the wall, and a stunningly 
beautiful teakwood bar opposite the door. The room was crowded, but the low 
hum of an air conditioner explained why there was no stuffiness. 

The Satterfields detached themselves from a group of people and came 
forward. Bud said, "Have you people met my wife, Rosalie, yet?" 

"We've seen her around," Peggy Satterfield said. "But we haven't been 
formally introduced." 

"Now you have. Frank and Peggy Satterfield, my wife, Rosalie." 

They smiled hello. Rosalie was impressed by them. Frank was an elegant, 
aristocratic man who looked as though he might just have come from some 
exclusive country club cocktail party a few minutes before. His face was 
lean and well chiseled, with a tapering nose, thin, smiling lips, and 
brightly sparkling eyes surrounded by a tiny network of fine wrinkles that 
gave him a touch of maturity without detracting from his handsomeness. He 
seemed wonderfully poised, wonderfully graceful. 

His wife, Peggy, seemed to be about forty, but the sense of her age came 
more from her sophistication and wittiness than from her looks, which were 
those of a girl two-thirds her age. She was a tall blonde with the same sort 
of regular, elegantly handsome features her husband had. Her face was 
unlined. A chic white dress hugged her body, revealing the lush curves of 
hip and thigh. Pale, white breasts crowded over the top of her low-cut 
neckline. 

"Welcome to our little party," Frank Satterfield said, his voice crisp and 
cultured. "You might think it well to refresh yourselves. Make yourselves at 
home." With a courteous little sweep of his hand, he indicated the bar, atop 
which a dazzling array of liquor bottles had been assembled. "There's a 
pitcher of martinis in the 'fridge," he went on. "Or else you can mix 
whatever you'd like. I want you both to help yourselves, and have a 
wonderful time." 

Bud ambled toward the bar. "What'll you have, honey?" 

"Bourbon on the rocks," Rosalie said. 

He returned with a couple of drinks. Rosalie glanced around the room. She 
caught sight of Paula Burkhart talking to a man Rosalie did not know. And 
there was Jim Burkhart standing next to Joy Rabbins. Near the door, Rosalie 
caught sight of Ted Martin and his curvy redhead from Illinois. Lois and Ron 
Hunter were with Paul Morton. The group included practically everyone in the 
trailer camp that Rosalie knew at all well. She wandered over to join the 
Hunters and Paul Morton. 

Ron and Lois Hunter were very young, Lois no more than Rosalie's age, Ron in 
his early twenties. He worked as an architect for a nearby firm, and they 
had a small baby. They were quiet, pleasant people. They were talking about 
a bird they had seen that morning. Ron had thought it was a heron, but Paul 
Morton, the naturalist, was of the opinion that it had been only a 
sandpiper. Rosalie listened for a while, sipping her drink. 

People kept arriving. The party was on the crowded side, now, and had 
overflowed onto the porch and into one of the other rooms of the big 
trailer. And the Satterfields kept moving around, circulating, turning on 
the charm, making sure everybody was happy. 

In the crush, Rosalie found herself separated from Bud. She caught sight of 
him at the far side of the room, talking with several people she did not 
know. It was a considerable operation to get across the room to his side. 
She started to try it and found herself confronted with Paula Burkhart. 

Paula looked as though she had begun drinking a good deal earlier in the 
evening. Her face was puffy and reddened, and her eyes weren't focusing 
properly. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse that was hiked 
so far down on one side that one big breast was bared practically to the 
nipple. It didn't seem to bother her. 

She weaved drunkenly and managed an odd giggle. "Nice party, huh?" 

"Yes," Rosalie said. 

She tried to excuse herself, but Paula took her firmly by the wrist. "My 
drink's empty. So's yours. 

What say we get refills?" 

Rosalie felt uncomfortable in Paula's company. But, after all, the woman was 
her next-door neighbor. There was no sense in starting a feud that would 
make life unpleasant for everybody. Better to be polite. 

"Okay," Rosalie said. 

Together, they threaded their way along the wall until they came to the bar. 
Paula reached out for the bottle of Canadian and poured until her glass was 
more than half full. She dunked a couple of ice cubes in. 

"What's yours?" Paula asked. 

"The bourbon. But you'd better let me pour-" 

"Here, gimme." She took Rosalie's glass and held the bourbon bottle over it. 
Rosalie gasped. 

"That's enough!" 

"The stuff can't hurt you," Paula said, with a raspy laugh. "You want some 
rocks in it?" 

"Please." 

She took her drink from Paula. It was about twice as much as she had wanted. 
But, she told herself, she could simply make it last twice as long. 

Paula was very close to her. Rosalie was disgusted by the older woman's 
alcoholic breath, by the beads of sweat that were rolling down Paula's face 
and into her bosom, by the shameless way that one of her breasts was all but 
completely exposed. Rocking a little and leaning against the wall to steady 
herself, Paula said, "So you been married almost a week, huh?" 

"That's right," Rosalie said uncomfortably. 

"You like being married?" 

"I think it's wonderful." 

"I guess you would, with a guy like Bud. Hey, you can settle an argument I 
had with my husband. Just between us girls, now. Were you cherry when you 
got married?" 

"I'm afraid I don't understand." 

Rosalie's puzzled look brought a coarse bark of laughter from Paula. Paula 
said, "You wouldn't, I guess. What I meant was, did you ever have it before 
last week? Did anybody ever lay you, that's what I'm asking." 

Color flared in Rosalie's face. "Not that it's really anybody's business, 
but I was a virgin when I got married. And I'm proud of it." 

Paula's smile was half a leer. "Yeah. I figured you for being cherry. That 
lucky bastard, Bud." Paula winked. "Well, you aren't cherry any more. Not if 
I know Bud Richards. And I do know Bud Richards. Why, let me tell you, 
girlie, I-" 

"I think maybe you'd better go easy on the whiskey," Rosalie said stiffly. 
"You look kind of wobbly." 

"You telling me I'm drunk?" 

"Listen, Paula, I don't want to start an argument or anything like that, but 
it's simply that there are some things I don't want to talk about-" 

"Like sex?" 

"All right, like sex. Now, if you'll excuse me-" 

"Don't mean to offend ya," Paula said, hanging onto Rosalie's arm as much 
for support as to keep her there. "Look, you got a great guy for a husband. 

And for a girl who had her cherry when she got married, you picked a 
crackerjack. That guy's an ace in bed. Let me tell you straight from the 
horse's mouth, because he laid me a dozen times and I never had it better 
from anybody. In fact I kind of miss it, so any time you feel like letting 
me crawl into the sack with Bud, you just let me know. And you can get it 
from my old man and I won't squawk at all, because turnabout's fair play 
and-" 

"Let go of me!" Rosalie said, so sharply that several people turned around 
to see. She pulled her arm loose from Paula's grasp and literally fled into 
another part of the room. The drunken woman's cackling laughter pursued her 
relentlessly. 

Tears crowded into Rosalie's eyes. All right, so Bud had slept with Paula a 
couple of times, maybe even the dozen times Paula had boasted of. Well, that 
was the past. It deserved to be forgotten. Bud had been a bachelor, and he 
had been living next to a sluttish woman with an attractive body, and it was 
hard to condemn him for taking advantage of what had probably been an almost 
irresistible offer. 

But that was the past. 

Bud was a married man now. 

Any episode between him and Paula deserved to be dead and buried. Not dug up 
and flaunted disgustingly in his own bride's face. 

And, worse, was the offer-or was it a threat?-to continue with more of the 
same. And the counter-offer, so horrid and repugnant, that Rosalie could go 
to bed with Jim Burkhart to even things up. 

Rosalie gulped her drink down to steady herself. 

She looked around for Bud, wanting to go to his side, wanting him to 
reassure her that there were no other women in his life any more, that he 
was pledged and devoted to her and to her alone. Standing on tiptoes, 
Rosalie caught sight of him at the far end of the room. He was talking to a 
young, blonde girl of medium height. Rosalie felt an irrational surge of 
jealousy, and started to go to him. 

Again her way was blocked, this time by Ted Martin and his red-haired girl 
friend. She was tall, practically a six-footer, and she had a glassy-eyed 
grin on her face that announced to the world that she had wrapped herself 
around a good deal too much liquor that evening. Her body was lush and 
full-blown, practically cow-like in its mammary magnificense, far too big to 
be attractive. 

Ted Martin guffawed merrily and called out, "Hey, now? Here she is! If it 
isn't the blushing honeymooner! None other than Mrs. Bud Richards herself!" 
He grinned right into her face. 

Rosalie tried uncomfortably to get past him. "Please-excuse me-" 

He ignored her obvious irritation. With a big, broad, toothy grin he said, 
"Like to introduce you to a very good friend of mine. Real swell gal, close 
friend. Name of Miss Ellen Washburn. From Illyria, Illinois, and don't ask 
me to spell it. Don't ask me to spell anything." 

"Excuse me-" 

Martin swept right on. "Miss Washburn here's a librarian, she tells me." 

"I used to be one," the girl put in. 

"Yeah. A retired librarian. Pretty young to be a retired anything, eh? Can 
you beat that, though? A librarian with a figure like that? I bet all the 
little boys came from miles around to get checked out by her?" 

Rosalie flashed a formal smile. "How do you do, Miss Washburn," she said 
frostily, impatiently. 

Ellen said, "But now aren't you going to tell me what her name is, Ted? 
That's a hell of a way to introduce a person, you know!" 

Martin looked sheepish. "Sorry, m'love. Was just getting around to that 
little detail. Name is-ah-Rosalie. Rosalie Richards. Brand new wife of an 
old pal, that's what she is. You met Bud Richards little while ago, 
remember? Big, he-man type. This is his wife. Married just a week. Pretty 
cute, huh?" 

Martin slid his arm possessively around Ellen's shoulders, getting his hand 
under one arm and over the side of one bulging breast. Rosalie once again 
excused herself, this time managing successfully to make an escape, and dove 
through the crowd, almost panicky now, wishing frantically that Bud had not 
let her be sidetracked alone among these people this way. 

She reached the place where he had been standing with the blonde.' No Bud. 
No blonde. 

Fearfully, Rosalie looked around. A dozen warring thoughts sprang to life in 
her mind. 

No, she told herself. You're imagining things". That horrible Paula put 
ideas in your mind. Bud wouldn't have gone off with that blonde or anybody 
else. Why, we're still on our honeymoon. Bud loves me, I know that as 
certainly as I know anything. I don't even have the right to suspect him of- 

But still, there was no sign of Bud anywhere. 

Or the blonde. 

Rosalie craned her neck, looked up and down the room. It was packed almost 
to capacity by then, but Bud was a big man, conspicuous even in a crowd, and 
it should have been possible to spot him. She couldn't. 

Maybe he went outside for some fresh air, she thought. The air conditioning 
system was fighting a losing battle. It was getting hot and smoky in there, 
and she already knew that Bud hated cigarette smoke. She forced her way 
through the crowd to the door, and burst out onto the porch. Half a dozen 
couples stood around out there, and a few more were sitting on the steps. 

No Bud. No blonde. 

Where is he? she asked herself in panic. 

She re-entered the trailer and turned left, going from the living room to 
the bedroom into which the party had overflowed. Nine or ten people there, 
none of them Bud. She went on, into the second bedroom at the end of the 
trailer. It was empty. She sank down on the bed and sobbed for a few 
moments. The party had turned into a nightmare of grinning, drunken faces, 
and Bud had run off with a blonde before they had even been married a week, 
and she was trapped in this trailer camp with a lot of terrible people, and- 

You're spoiling your makeup, she told herself. 

And you're building a fantasy out of nothing. Maybe Bud went back to the 
trailer to change his shoes. Maybe-oh, maybe anything. I mustn't suspect him 
like this. I mustn't- 

She rose, went to the mirror, dabbed at her eyes with a bit of tissue. Her 
mascara was tear-streaked, but at this point in the party nobody would be 
sober enough to notice. She opened the door, started out. 

"Here you are," a man's voice said. Suddenly there was an arm around her, a 
hand clutching at one of her breasts. "Been looking for you. M'wife says 
you've got hot pants for me. Come on, give us a kiss. Give us a kiss." 

Without even looking to see who it was that had grabbed her, Rosalie fought 
to free herself from his grasp. She got hold of the hand that gripped her 
breast, digging her nails into the skin as hard as she could. At the same 
time, she pushed back hard. 

Her assailant let go of her. 

"Jeez, kiddo, you don't have to get so goddamn violent!" 

She glared up at him, her breasts rising and falling rapidly in anger and 
panic. 

It was Jim Burkhart. , Rosalie stared at him, at the pale, weak, watery 
eyes, at the narrow nose, the little, wavering line of his thin, brown 
mustache. He was drunk, thoroughly and absolutely, but he was still able to 
stand. 

"You had no right to touch me that way!" 

"Damn sister, how was I to know you're so touchy? Paula said you were 
interested." 

"Well, I'm not! Now get out of my way before I call my husband and have him 
break you in half!" 

"Your husband?" Burkhart said, with a contemptuous laugh. "You'll call your 
husband?" 

"You heard me. What's so funny?" 

"Your husband picked up that blonde from Illinois, and right now they're out 
in the woods and she's flat on her back and he's giving it to her. That's 
what's so funny. He's just the guy to go telling me off!" 

"You're a stinking liar!" 

"Am I?" 

"Bud isn't like the rest of you people! He wouldn't do anything of the 
sort!" 

"Oh, no? Then where is he?" 

"Why-he must have just stepped out for some fresh air-" 

"Some fresh air and a quick piece of tail," Burkhart said cruelly. "I saw 
'em leave together, and they wasn't goin' to go sightseein'. He had his hand 
in her boobs and they were laughing it up." 

"You're lying!" Rosalie was half in tears. 

"Get used to it, kiddo. Your hubby's a lady's man, and he ain't never been 
able to resist a nice pair of knobs. He made it plenty with my wife, too. 
Don't think I didn't know what was going on, just that I was getting mine 
somewhere else too, so I didn't care so much. Live and let live, that's my 
motto. But now you got a chance to get even with him. We can go right in 
here-" 

He put his hands on her breasts and pushed her back into the bedroom, 
kicking the door shot with his knee as he entered. Rosalie clawed at him and 
pummeled him with her fists. "Let go of me! Let go!" 

He held her tight-there was an amazing amount of strength in that thin frame 
of his-and worked one hand into the front of her dress, roughly grabbing her 
right breast and pulling it up out of the bra, squeezing it, getting the 
nipple between two of his fingers. He was trying to get a kiss, now, his 
slobbering lips only inches from her own. 

Rosalie squirmed, struggled, fought to free herself. 

He held on tight. 

She pulled partly free and brought her knee up hard as she could, smashing 
it into Burkhart's balls. He let out a yelp and released her, tumbling into 
an agonized heap with both hands between his legs to clutch the injured 
parts. Rosalie felt a tingle of fear as she wondered whether she had kicked 
him too hard. 

He writhed for a moment. Then he straightened up and looked at her bitterly. 
"You goddamn little bitch, you didn't need to do that." 

"I asked you to let go of me." 

"Guy just wants a little fun. Why the hell couldn't you? Wouldn't cost you 
nothing. Your husband goes chasing tail all over the camp, and you gotta be 
this way." 

"You're lying about him," Rosalie said firmly. "And I don't want you ever to 
come near me again. Do you understand that? Never again. Or I'll kill you!" 

 CHAPTER FOUR 

She turned and marched past him, out of the bedroom. As she paused in the 
corridor to adjust her clothing and restore herself to some measure of 
decency, she began to tremble, her anger giving way to a delayed fear 
reaction. Why, he had all but tried to rape her in there. If he had 
succeeded in throwing her down on the bed, as he had tried to do, he might 
easily have had his way. And she could have screamed and screamed, with 
nobody able to hear her above the frenzied din of the party. 

She leaned against the wall for a shaky moment until she got control of 
herself. Then she continued back to the main part of the trailer. She had to 
find Bud. She had to see with her own eyes that he hadn't gone off with the 
blonde from Illinois, that he was still around. She had to have him protect 
her from Burkhart. 

Entering the main room, she spotted the host and said, "Mr. Satterfield, 
have you seen my husband?" 

Satterfield smiled in his urbane way and replied, "Why be so formal, my 
dear? Call me Dick. And no, I haven't seen Bud in a while. I remember he was 
standing right near the door, talking to some young lady, but that was a 
while back, and people do circulate around in here." He shrugged. "You don't 
seem to have a drink. Would you care to have me get one for you?" 

"Thanks, no," Rosalie said. "I-I'm more interested in finding Bud. If you 
see him, will you tell him I'm looking for him?" 

"I'll certainly do that," Satterfield promised. 

Was there a hint of a mocking smile on his face, a knowing glint in his 
eyes? It's your imagination, Rosalie told herself feverishly. Nothing but 
imagination. 

She turned and saw Ted Martin and Ellen Washburn right behind her, locked in 
a deep kiss. Martin's hand was wedged between their two bodies, clutching 
one of her massive breasts. They separated just as Rosalie glanced away in 
embarrassment, and looked at her as though sharing some secret joke. 

Rosalie said, "Have you seen Bud?" 

Ellen giggled. Martin said, "Not lately." 

"No, we haven't seen him," Ellen chortled. 

"If you do, tell him I'm looking for him," Rosalie said. She felt dizzy, why 
were they laughing and smirking this way? Was it because they knew Bud had 
gone off with Ellen's roommate? He couldn't have! He couldn't. He couldn't. 
He couldn't- 

She shouldered past them. The room suddenly was stiflingly hot. She had to 
have some fresh air. They were playing dance music, now, people were moving 
around wildly, laughing gaily- 

Someone came up to her. "Care to dance?" 

It was Ron Hunter. She shook him off. She saw Paula Burkhart deep in a 
passionate embrace with a man whose name she did not know. Everywhere, 
couples were forming, kissing, feeling, groping- 

The door beckoned. Rosalie pushed through it, out into the cool night air. 
Someone laughed just behind her-laughed at her, maybe. 

Did they all know the truth? 

Did they all know that Bud had gone off with another girl a week after his 
marriage? 

They know him better than I do, she thought. And they all think it's very 
funny. I'm an outsider here, Bud's one of them. They think it's a big joke 
for him to pick up a girl and leave me in the lurch. 

She felt terribly dizzy. The heat, the smoke, the drinks she had had, the 
nightmare panic of Burkhart's assault, the misery of getting separated from 
Bud-everything welled up in her mind at once. She began to topple. The 
grassy ground leaped toward her. 

She was aware that she was lying on the grass, that people were speaking her 
name. She felt a hand touch her shoulder, shaking her a little. 

"Rosalie?" 

She opened her eyes, sat up. Kneeling in front of her was Bonnie Campbell, 
the friendly girl from Lane Two. Bonnie was smiling. 

"Feeling dizzy?" she asked. 

Rosalie shrugged. "Just-all of a sudden-my legs went out from under me-" 

"Let me help you up." 

Bonnie's hands, surprisingly strong, went under Rosalie's arms, lifting her 
to her feet, steadying her. Bonnie held her a moment, then tentatively let 
go. Rosalie swayed but remained erect. 

"I didn't know you were at the party," Rosalie said. 

"I just got here a little while ago. I looked around to say hello, but I 
didn't see you. Until just now, when you took that spill. Hurt yourself?" 

"I don't think so." 

"Just a little too much to drink, huh? Well, come on. Let's walk it off. Ten 
minutes in the fresh air and you'll be good as new. Give me your arm." 

The physical nearness of the other girl was reassuring. Rosalie leaned on 
her a little as they started to walk away from the Satterfield trailer, up 
one lane and down the next. Rosalie half expected to come across Bud and the 
blonde girl behind some bush, the blonde girl lying naked with her legs 
spread wide and Bud on top of her- 

Rosalie shuddered. 

"What's the matter?" Bonnie said. "Still feeling sick?" 

"That party. I hated it." 

"Really?" 

"Everybody so drunk," Rosalie said. "Kissing and squeezing-I went into the 
bedroom for a moment, and someone came after me and practically tried to 
rape me. And Bud-" 

She hesitated. 

"Yes?" Bonnie said. 

"Bud. I don't know where he is. I saw him with some blonde, and then he was 
gone, and I can't find him anywhere. He must be gone an hour now. Bonnie, it 
isn't possible, is it? A week after our marriage? Everything's been so 
wonderful right up till now, he'd have no reason to pick up another girl-" 

They passed a couple embracing behind a thick oak tree. Rosalie looked away, 
not even wanting to see who they were. When they had gone a few steps 
further along, she said, "Bonnie, that wasn't-" 

"Bud? No. That was Harry Linard from Lane Five, with one of those girls from 
the end lane." 

"He couldn't have gone off with that blonde!" 

"I'm sure he didn't," Bonnie said soothingly. "It was probably just so 
crowded in there that you couldn't catch sight of him. I know how those 
parties are." 

"You really think he may be in there?" 

"There isn't a reason in the world why he'd want to cheat on you, Rosalie. A 
beautiful girl like you, with such a lovely face, such breasts, such a 
body-why would he want to risk losing you?" 

Bonnie had a way of looking at her and of talk-mg about her body that made 
Rosalie uncomfortable. It really wasn't right for one girl to praise another 
goPs breasts that way, Rosalie thought. Especially a pretty girl like 
Bonnie. But it was reassuring to hear her talk that way. 

They walked on, until Rosalie's head began to clear. Bonnie suggested 
finally that they return to the party and look for Bud. Hesitantly, Rosalie 
agreed. 

The party was still going as strong as ever. Rosalie and Bonnie elbowed 
through the crowd at the door. 

"See?" Bonnie said. "What did I tell you? There's Bud, over there by the 
bar. He's probably been there all the time!" 

Rosalie's knees felt weak with relief. She wanted desperately to believe 
that what Bonnie said was reallly true. 

But she heard the sound of laughter. She looked to her left and saw a little 
huddled group-Ted Martin, Ellen, and the blonde girl. They were whispering 
about something, and evidently it was terribly funny to them. 

Rosalie's spine registered a cold chill. There were grass stains on the rear 
of the blonde girl's yellow skirt. As though she had been sitting on the 
grass behind one of the trailers. 

Or as though she had been lying on it-with a man's weight pressing down on 
her. 

For a long moment, Rosalie stared at this girl who might possibly be her 
rival. The blonde was about twenty-three or twenty-four, Rosalie guessed. 
And not really very pretty. She looked chunky, with legs too short for her 
body, and her bosom was big, not in a very sexy, but in a rather busty, way. 
Her hair was straw-colored, cut in bangs in front. Her face could even be 
called plain, though she had lively eyes and full lips. Her jutting jaw 
spoke of determination, headstrong willfulness. She looked like the sort of 
woman who could persuade a saint to go to bed with her. 

She could have seduced Bud, Rosalie admitted bitterly. 

Heart cold, Rosalie crossed the room toward the bar. Bud had just poured 
himself a drink. He looked down at her, smiling amiably. 

"Hello, honey. Where've you been the last hour?" 

"I might ask you the same question," Rosalie said, trying to keep any hint 
of a shrewish edge out of her voice. "I've been looking all over for you." 

"I've been around," Bud said casually. "Can I mix a drink for you?" 

"No thanks. I've had enough." 

"You look all hot and bothered, sweet." 

"Well, here I am with a bunch of virtual strangers, and you deserted me for 
an entire hour-!" 

Bud said apologetically, "I looked over at you, and you seemed to be getting 
along perfectly well on your own. So I just stepped out to take a little 
stroll, and then I was standing outside talking to some people for a while, 
and when I came back in I couldn't find you anywhere. I half thought you had 
gone home and gone to bed." 

He said it all with perfect sincerity, Rosalie thought. Be careful, she 
warned herself. Let's not make this the first quarrel of our marriage. He 
may be lying and he may not be, but don't accuse him of anything until 
you're sure. 

She eyed him steadily, searching for some telltale sign, a smudge of 
lipstick, a tiny wound where the girl might have bitten him, perhaps. But 
there was nothing. Either he was innocent or he knew how to cover his 
tracks. 

But Bud and the blonde were gone at the same time, the silent voice 
persisted naggingly. 

And what about those grass stains-? 

"Bud, I'm tired," she said suddenly. "Let's go home now, yes?" 

"But it's only half-past eleven, baby." 

"I don't care. I'm getting sleepy." 

"Aren't you having a good time?" 

"It's fun. But I really would like to leave." She nestled up against him, 
caressing his arms. "And you wouldn't want me to go home and go to bed 
alone, would you?" she murmured, as seductively as she could. 

He shrugged. "Okay. Just let me finish my drink." 

"Fair enough." 

He took a deep sip. Rosalie looked around. The party-goers all had a sweaty, 
disheveled look about them now, all but the hosts. Frank and Peggy 
Satterfield still looked as impeccable as ever. They had split up, Frank 
holding animated conversation with a short, dark-complexioned girl, Peggy 
talking and standing rather close to a stocky, baldingly professorial man. 
Everywhere in the room couples were necking in an uninhibited way. Some 
people had already begun to drift off, Rosalie noticed-not necessarily with 
their own wives or husbands. 

It was one big, happy family, here in the River View Mobile Home Court. 

One big carnival of lust, it seemed. 

Bud finished his drink. She took his arm, guided him toward the door. They 
said goodnight to anyone they passed-the Satterfields, Tom Martin, Bonnie 
Campbell, Paul Morton, the Hunters. The chunky blonde had her back to them, 
and Bud did not say good night to her or even look in her direction for more 
than a flickering, innocent instant. 

The night air ywas bracing. They walked in silence up the lane to the aisle, 
and cut across to their own trailer. Bud said finally, "I'm sorry you 
weren't happy at the party tonight, baby." 

"I am too. Maybe if you'd pay more attention to me-" 

"But how are you going to meet people if you cling to your husband's arm?" 

"Maybe I'm more interested in clinging to my husband's arm than in meeting 
people," she said, as calmly as she could. "A lot of those people don't seem 
too appetizing to me. Especially the Burkharts, both of them." 

"You don't like them?" 

"Not at all." 

"They take some getting used to," Bud said. "But they're good people at 
heart. A little coarse, that's all. Especially when they've had a few 
drinks." 

Rosalie nodded without replying. She didn't want to tell Bud about Paula's 
boast of having slept with him a dozen times-or about her offer to trade 
busbands for a night. She didn't want to tell him about Jim Burkhart's 
clumsy attempt to make love to her, either. Perhaps, she hoped, all those 
things could be overlooked. If they didn't happen again. If she could be 
sure about Bud. No sense stirring up trouble until she had a clearer idea of 
things. 

They entered their bedroom and began to undress. Bud yawned and said, "I'm 
tired too. It's a good thing you talked me into leaving. I can use a good 
night's sleep." 

Rosalie smiled seductively at him. "So can I." 

She undressed quickly, brushing past him on her way to the bathroom and 
lightly grazing the tips of her breasts against his bare back. He didn't 
show any response. She washed up, and got into bed. He hung up his clothes 
and went into the bathroom, spending a long time there. 

At last he came out. He switched off the light and climbed into bed next to 
her. 

He kissed her gently on the lips. "Good night, darling." 

"That all? Just a 'good night'?" 

He laughed in the darkness. "I said I was tired." 

She made no reply. She nestled up against him, taking one of his hands and 
clamping it between her thighs. She found the other hand, put it on her 
breasts. He did not move. Her fingers roamed Ms body, trying to arouse him. 

"Bud, don't you want me tonight?" 

"Listen, sweet, just because we've been doing it every night so far doesn't 
mean it can keep up forever. I've got limits, just like every other man. 
Anyway, I'm tired out. And I've been drinking. That always louses up my 
reflexes." He kissed the stiffening tip of one breast. "In the morning, 
maybe. Let's get some rest now, eh? Call it a night?" 

"If that's the way it has to be," she said hollowly. 

"Baby, I don't want to disappoint you. It's just that-well, you can see for 
yourself. I'm just not in the mood." 

"All right, Bud. You're tired. Good night." 

She pulled away from him, turning on her side. She felt his hand stroke her 
back and buttocks, as though trying to reassure her of his love, but the 
gesture made her shake him off in irritation. 

Maybe he was tired, really. 

Maybe it was the liquor. 

But, she thought, maybe it was simply that he had already had his evening's 
quota of sex, an hour before, in the bushes with that busty blonde. It was 
easy to believe, now. He had failed her in the one place where he could 
prove that he hadn't gone with the blonde. Now she was almost convinced of 
his guilt. A hot tear rolled down her cheek and dampened the pillow. Why had 
he done it? 

Why? 

Why? 

Then it was Monday morning. Rosalie's first day entirely on her own in the 
trailer camp. Bud had left for work at half-past eight. His brief leave of 
absence was over. Rosalie busied herself with the breakfast dishes. She was 
in a dark, introspective mood, a carryover from the day before. 

Sunday had been almost endless for her. Bud didn't seem to realize how 
troubled and distressed she was by the outcome of the Satterfields' party on 
Saturday night. He went through the day quite relaxed, sleeping late, 
reading the Sunday papers, fixing an outdoor cookout lunch for them. Nothing 
seemed out of the ordinary, so far as he was concerned. Rosalie had hidden 
her bitter suspicions. She forced herself to pretend that everything was 
still all right in their marriage, that Bud was a faithful husband. 

Sunday night, Bud had made love to her. It was exactly a week since her 
wedding night. Exactly a week since her timid, apprehensive inauguration 
into the world of sex. But this night she did not respond to his caresses. 
She felt an inner chill when he touched her. The lingering doubts created at 
the party prevented her from feeling any delight in his embrace. To avoid 
suspicion, she pretended to be responding. But she felt nothing-nothing at 
all. 

And then it was Monday, and she was alone in the trailer. She dusted, 
cleaned, swept up. There was really not very much for her to do. Bud had 
kept the trailer orderly during his bachelor days, and in the week she had 
lived in it, Rosalie had brought everything under her control. By eleven in 
the morning, she had exhausted the backlog of housework. 

She had the whole day to herself. 

Rosalie wasn't used to this sort of idleness. She had gone straight from 
high school into a clerical job, and she had never had much practice at just 
doing nothing. But Bud had insisted that she stay home after her marriage. 
She had had to quit her job anyway, since it was in downtown Manhattan and 
would have involved a long trip every day by bus and subway. But Bud didn't 
want her looking for any other jobs in the vicinity of the trailer camp. He 
had a firm belief that a wife's place was in the home. 

She tried to read for a while, but either the book she selected was a dull 
one or else she was not in the mood for concentrating. She put it down after 
a dozen pages. 

It was too early to prepare lunch for herself. She wandered around the 
trailer for a while, at loose ends. Outside, the young mothers who made up a 
big percentage of the trailer camp's population were minding their children. 
Some of the retired people were sitting quietly in the armchairs in front of 
the administration building. The husbands were away at work. The single 
people, the "floaters," had mostly gone into New York City for a day's 
amusement, or else were still asleep. 

Rosalie gnawed her knuckles in boredom. 

Her mind kept going back to Saturday night. Again and again her mind's eye 
produced the image of the blonde girl with the telltale grass stains on the 
back of her skirt. 

I'll go out of my mind if I don't find out the truth, Rosalie thought. 

But who can I ask? Bud? That's absurd? 

Who else? The people who like me would try to hide the truth from me. And 
people like the Burk-harts would go out of their way to lie to me. 

She hovered in an agony of indecision for a long moment before making up her 
mind. 

There was only one way to find out. The direct way. 

She left the trailer and walked up to the administration building, flashing 
a falsely cheery smile at anyone she passed that she happened to know. Just 
inside the door of the administration building was a master directory of the 
tenants of the trailer camp, arranged by lanes, as well as alphabetically. 
What was the red-haired girl's name? Washburn, that was it. Ellen Washburn. 

Rosalie glanced down the alphabetical list and discovered that Ellen 
Washburn lived in the fourth trailer in Lane Two. Checking the lane list, 
Rosalie ran her eyes down the column until she came to the entry she wanted. 

Number Four Macklin, Rhona-Illinois Washburn, Ellen-Illinois 

So that was the blonde's name. Rhona Macklin. Rosalie moistened her dry lips 
and left the building. She was taut and tense inside, and half a dozen times 
as she proceeded toward Lane Two she considered going away without doing 
anything. But that was the cowardly way out, she knew. 

She came to the fourth trailer-a small green one, second-hand and rather 
battered-looking. Rosalie paused a long moment. Maybe she won't be home. 
Maybe they've both gone out for the day. 

She pressed the buzzer and waited. 

For a long moment, there was no response. Rosalie sighed in relief. They 
weren't home, after all. She turned, started to leave. 

The door opened part way. 

"Who's there?" a sleepy voice asked. 

Rosalie looked in. It was Ellen, the tall redhead. She was wearing only a 
flimsy, gauzy nightgown that did absolutely nothing to hide her nakedness. 
Her breasts were great, swaying bowls of flesh that bulged oat astonishingly 
under the gown. Her hips were fleshy, the thighs thick. The redhead rubbed 
her eyes and said, "What do you want?" 

"Is-is Miss Macklin in?" 

"Rhona? Yeah, she's around. But I think she's still asleep. Look, why can't 
you come visiting at a decent hour? People entitled to get some sleep." 

"It's half-past eleven," Rosalie said crisply. "I thought you'd all be up by 
this time. But if Miss Macklin's asleep, maybe I'd better come back some 
other time." 

"Ellen, who's out there?" called an even sleepier voice from within. 

"Looks like she's up," the Washburn girl said. "It's Bud Richards' wife," 
she called into the interior of the trailer. "Wants to talk to you!" 

"What about?" 

"How would I know? You up?" 

"I suppose," Rhona replied. 

"Come on in, then," Ellen Washburn said, with a negligent shrug to Rosalie. 
"Time we were getting up, anyway." 

With a feeling of uneasy tension, Rosalie entered the little trailer. It was 
unbelievably untidy inside, with clothes strewn everywhere. She stood 
hesitantly in the little vestibule, wishing she had never come in. 

"Morning," Rhona Macklin said, emerging from the bedroom at the left. 

She was stark naked, not even bothering with the pretense of a gown. She 
emerged rubbing her eyes and yawning. Rosalie stared at her in cold-eyed 
scrutiny. The blonde girl seemed out of proportion. The stumpiness of her 
legs accented her broad hips, making her look shorter than she actually was. 
The chunky, heavy globes of her breasts contributed to her squat appearance. 

She opened her eyes wide and stood facing Rosalie with her hands on her hips 
and her legs apart. She seemed utterly unconcerned with hiding her nakedness 
in front of another woman. Rather, she seemed to be flaunting it, as if to 
say, Look, these are the boobs your husband was squeezing on Saturday night, 
this is the ass he was grabbing, these are the legs he was lying between. 

"Well?" Rhona asked. Her tone was truculent, almost defiant. 

Rosalie kept her voice level. "Do you mind if I talk to you for a few 
minutes?" 

"Go ahead." 

Rosalie glanced at Ellen, who had stripped off her nightgown and was 
blithely doing setting-up exercises in the corner of the room. The redhead's 
massive buttocks quivered repellently with each toe-touch. "Could we talk 
privately?" Rosalie asked. 

"I don't keep any secrets from Ellen," said Rhona. 

The redhead looked up, a contemptuous grin on her face. "That's okay. I'm 
going to take a shower now anyway. Have all the privacy you like." She 
laughed shrilly, making the pendulous enormous rounds of her bosom quiver in 
an almost obscene way, and moved on toward the bathroom. 

 CHAPTER FIVE 

"Okay," Rhona said, when they were alone. 

"What's on your mind, Mrs. Richards?" 

"Don't you want to get dressed before we talk?" 

"Does the sight of my bare butt disturb you?" Rhona retorted. 

"I guess I'm old-fashioned enough to think that a woman shouldn't receive 
strangers in the nude," Rosalie said acidly. "But suit yourself." 

Negligently, the girl picked up Ellen's discarded gown and draped it over 
her thick, sluttish body. "This okay now?" she asked. 

Rosalie scowled. They were just fencing, going through the preliminaries. 
She begged for the courage to say what she had come here to say. 

There was a long, awkward moment of silence. 

Then Rosalie said, "Do you know why I'm here?" 

"Can't guess." 

"Let me spell it out for you, then. I came here because I don't want you 
fooling around with my husband any more. Is that plain enough?" 

Rhona sat down, crossing her legs in a way that bared half her body. "Who 
says I'm fooling around with your husband? Somebody been spreading lies 
about me?" 

"I don't need anyone to tell me stories," Rosalie said. "I have eyes. I 
could see for myself." 

"What did you see?" 

"I saw you and my husband talking together at the party Saturday night. Then 
both of you were gone from the Satterfields' for over an hour. And when you 
came back, you had grass stains on the back of your skirt." 

"You're a pretty good little detective, aren't you, Mrs. Richards?" 

"I haven't been married very long," Rosalie said quietly. "I'm not 
as-sophisticated-as some of the married people around here. I have another 
old-fashioned belief you probably don't think much of. I happen to believe a 
husband and a wife should sleep only with each other." 

"How quaint." 

"Isn't it, though?" Rosalie said bitterly. She shook her head. "Listen to 
me, Rhona. I didn't come here to make trouble. Will you believe that? I'm 
not looking for a scene, for hair-pulling and shrieking. I love Bud, and I 
want to keep him." 

"So?" 

"I can't believe you're a basically evil person. I can't believe you'd 
deliberately set out to wreck my marriage. Am I right or am I wrong?" 

Rhona was silent a long moment before replying Some of the hardness was gone 
from her face as she answered, "I'm no home-wrecker. Get that straight." 

"Then why did you seduce Bud on Saturday night? Or do you deny that you did 
it?" 

"No, I don't deny I had sex relations with your husband on Saturday night," 
Rhona said in a business-like voice. The flat words cut into Rosalie like 
scythes. "Your detective work was pretty good." 

"But why? Why'd you do it? Aren't there enough other men to go around, 
single men? Did you have to go after him?" 

"I didn't go after him," Rhona said calmly. "He went after me." 

"He what?" 

"You want to know what he said to me, Mrs. Richards? In just so many words? 
He said, How about you and me going out back and taking a quick tumble while 
my wife isn't looking?' That's just what he said." 

"I don't believe it!" 

"Tough," Rhona said, shrugging. "I actually said it didn't seem right for 
him to go tomcatting around a week after he got married. But he said no, 
you'd never find out, that he couldn't resist me, had to have me. And a lot 
of stuff like that. So finally I gave in. Who was I to wag a finger at him 
if he felt like being a cheater? I'm no saint. I've slept around plenty, and 
I'm always on the lookout for a good lay. I believe in having fun in life." 

"But-with another woman's husband-?" 

"I told you, he wanted it bad. I'm not your husband's keeper. Look at it 
from my viewpoint. I pulled into this camp a couple weeks ago. I'm a single 
girl, I look around for men to sleep with. It's like natural for me. I see 
this good-looking guy in Lane Four, and naturally I make a play for him. 
Only he can't be made. Won't even look at me. I find out it's because he's 
getting married in a week. Okay, so I cross him off my list and try to find 
somebody else, only the supply isn't so hot. And here's my girl friend 
getting herself this cat, Ted. I'm on the outside. I got to sleep with 
myself and nobody else. I'm getting kind of randy, you know? And then comes 
the party, and this dreamboat decides he's had enough of the fidelity bit, 
and he gives me a fall. What am I supposed to do, say no when I'm hard up 
and he's interested?" 

Rosalie stared over the other girl's shoulder, at the imitation-oak paneling 
of the wall. She felt confused, wounded, stunned by Rhona's words. 

"I-I can't believe all this," she muttered harshly. "That Bud would come 
chasing after you, and not the other way 'round-" 

Rhona shrugged. "Sorry, kid. That's the way it happened to crumble. I feel 
sorry as hell for you. Maybe if I hadn't had some drinks Saturday I would 
have done different. But as it was-" 

"All right," Rosalie said quietly. "You couldn't help yourself, then." 

"Let me give you a word of free advice," Rhona said. "First, how old are 
you?" 

"Almost twenty." 

"Twenty. Okay. I've got five years on you. And a busy five years. I've been 
around plenty, and I can tell you haven't. You know what a satyr is?" 

"A satyr? Isn't that something out of the Greek myths?" 

"Yeah. And it also means a man who can't ever get enough sex. Like your 
husband, Bud. I asked a lot of questions about him when I got here. You know 
how many women here he slept with before he hooked up with you? I bet he's 
been in the sack with half the women here. The ones between fourteen and 
forty, anyhow. He's, like, insatiable. Here's the free advice, Mrs. 
Richards. Ditch this guy in a hurry. He's bad news. He'll break your heart 
in a hurry." 

"He says he loves me." 

"Maybe he does. But there are a lot of men like him. They can't stay with 
one woman for long. They got to have variety. You keep house for them, you 
sleep with them, you cook for them, but even so they keep on straying 
anyhow. And that's the kind of man you married." 

"It isn't so," Rosalie said stubbornly. 

"Okay, go on fooling yourself," said Rhona. "Listen, you're a sweet kid, I 
hate to see you get hurt. I won't go out of my way to get Bud into bed with 
me, and if he propositions me again I'll try to block it. For your sake. I 
don't need to tell you that I'd sleep with him like that, if not for you. 
But I can find myself other guys. You don't need to worry about me. It's all 
the other women in this place you got to worry about. I'm on your side, Mrs. 
Richards. I know what it's like to get a raw deal out of life." 

Fighting back tears, Rosalie managed a smile and said, "I-want to thank 
you-at least for being honest with me." 

"It was the least I could do." 

"I still don't believe what you said about him-his need for many women--" 

"Suit yourself." 

"But at least I can trust you not to come between us again." 

"Right." 

"And you won't say a word to Bud about this talk, will you? You won't tell 
him I came here?" 

"Of course not," Rhona promised warmly. 

Rosalie thanked her and left. Her legs felt weak, her knees watery, as she 
made her way back to her trailer. Rhona's words had come as a bombshell to 
her. She had expected a quarrel, had expected hot denials, had expected 
almost anything but the bland admission that Bud had eagerly sought the 
blonde girl's favors. 

Maybe it isn't so, Rosalie thought. 

Maybe she was lying to me about Bud. Making up some kind of wild story to 
hide the fact that she wants to break up my marriage and take Bud for 
herself. Putting the blame for it all on Bud so I'd like her and see her 
point of view. 

Rosalie shook her head. She was fooling nobody but herself, she told herself 
bitterly. Rhona's words had the ring of truth. 

She clenched her fists impotently. Assuming it's true, she thought, what am 
I going to do now? 

Marrying Bud had seemed such a permanent step. And, in a way, it was. She 
could never have her innocence back, her virginity. She had surrendered it 
once and for all to the ruggedly handsome man she called her husband. Now 
she could never again give herself, new and fresh, trembling and eager, to a 
man she loved. She could never again know the bliss of a first honeymoon. 

She shook her head. It seemed unbelievable to be thinking about a divorce 
only eight days after the wedding. Bud had never been anything but 
unfailingly kind and gentle and loving to her since she had met him. The 
first six days of her marriage had been the happiest ones of her life. It 
was only at the party that things had begun to go sour. Yet even then there 
had been no quarrel between them, no interruption of the harmony that 
existed in their marriage-at least, no outward interruption. 

Rosalie realized she could simply close her eyes to the truth and go along. 
Bud would continue to be tender and loving, an ideal husband. And if she 
could only forget that he hungered after other women, she could be an 
ideally happy wife. 

No. 

No, it would never work. She couldn't live a lie. She couldn't pretend 
ignorance of a fact that seemed to be openly known by everyone else in the 
trailer camp. She would see the pitying glances, hear the mocking, distant 
laughter, the muted whispers. 

What am I going to do? 

She thought of divorce, but the idea sickened her. 

Despite everything, she still loved Bud. She couldn't bear to part from him. 
She had let him be the first man to take her, and that was a bond that would 
stand firm despite any infidelities he might commit. 

But how can I face them all-when they know? 

Why does Bud have to be that sort of man? 

Can't I be enough for him? 

She was passing the Satterfields' trailer. As she walked by, the front door 
opened and Frank Satterfield appeared, dressed nattily in a black polo shirt 
with white checks and a pair of white Bermuda shorts. Black, knee-length 
stockings added to his elegant appearance. 

"Good morning, Rosalie." 

"Morning, Mr. Satt-Frank." 

He chuckled. "That's better. I hate formality. Bud is back at work, I 
presume?" 

Rosalie nodded. "He went back today." 

"Building missiles to save us from the tyrants of Peking. How 
public-spirited of him. Now, take me. I'm such a fumbler that I can't even 
wire a lamp properly. Peggy takes care of all the mechanical things around 
the house. And then, on the other hand, here's your husband Bud helping to 
put together whole, ruddy rockets!" 

"He's very handy mechanically," Rosalie said. "It's a good knack to have." 

"I wish I had it." 

Satterfield descended from his porch and came toward her. He smelled of some 
elegant after-shave lotion. He looked so crisp, she thought, so well 
groomed, so aristocratic. 

He said, "It must be so lonely for you today. This first day alone with a 
group of strangers after your husband's gone back to work." 

"Oh, I'll survive it," she said with a little, offhand shrug. 

Satterfield looked at her curiously. "Have you eaten lunch yet?" he asked, 
out of nowhere. "Why, no." 

"Could I invite you to be my guest, then?" His smile became even more 
ingratiating. "I'm heading out toward a record store along Route 
seventeen-they're having a tremendous sale of operatic albums, I 
understand-and I was going to have lunch on the road. Do you think you would 
care to join me?" 

"Well-" 

Satterfield chuckled coaxingly. "Oh, come on. Peggy's gone into the city to 
shop, and I'm fearfully lonely today. And Bud won't mind at all if you go 
driving with a harmless old man of forty-three, I'm positive. Of course, if 
you have something important to do around the house-" 

Rosalie hesitated. 

She was slightly afraid of Satterfield, with all his elegance and poise and 
charm. But something defiantly rebellious sparked to life in her. Bud had 
slept with other girls, hadn't he? All right, then. At the very least, she 
could certainly go driving with another man! 

"I'd love to go," she said. They walked over to the parking area together. 
"Here it is," Satterfield said. "Just hop right in, and we can be off." 

Satterfield's car was a trim, sports model, low and sleek. She was 
practically sitting on the floor, once she had settled into the bucket seat. 
Rosalie smiled as she clambered in, to hide her tension. 

"You don't mean to say you pull that entire monstrous trailer of yours with 
this little car!" she said. 

"Oh, good lord, no." Satterfield chuckled urbanely as he started the engine. 
"We have a regular Detroit dinosaur that we use when we move from one place 
to another. It's got horsepower to spare. Peggy took it to drive to New 
York." 

"Two cars? But what do you do with this one when you travel? Fold it up and 
store it aboard the trailer?" 

"Now, there's a good idea," Satterfield said. "But the truth is we don't 
take the sports car with us. I don't own this, really. I lease it by the 
month. I can't bear driving around in one of those big cars. This one is so 
maneuverable, you see. But when we pull up stakes, I merely return the 
sports car to the leasing people, and rent a new one when we reach our 
destination." He spun the wheel, and the car drifted easily onto the 
highway. The speed rapidly mounted. Satterfield drove with negligent ease, 
twisting in and out among the bigger cars almost without giving warning. 
"Well, Rosalie how do you like the little devil?" he asked. 

"Oh, it's wonderful!" 

"Would you like to try driving it? I could pull off and change seats with 
you-" 

"Oh, no. I don't drive," Rosalie said. 

"Really? I thought everyone in the younger generation learned how to drive 
upon reaching puberty." 

"Not this one," Rosalie said. "I was born in Manhattan. I'm the subway type. 
My parents never owned a car, so I never learned. But I'm planning to, now. 
In case Bud and I take any long trips. It wouldn't be fair to make him do 
all the driving." Her face darkened suddenly, and she felt a stab of sorrow 
at her heart as Bud entered the conversation. She remembered that everything 
was changed, now, that those long-distance vacation trips they had planned 
might have to be scrapped-along with the entire marriage. 

"When you learn," Satterfield said, "go to a driving school. Don't let Bud 
teach you. I gave Peggy some lessons, years ago, and we were both quivering 
wrecks before a week was out." 

"Did she learn how to drive?" 

"Yes. But not from me. My nerves couldn't take more than three lessons. She 
went to a driving school." Satterfield cut agilely around a ponderous, 
slow-moving truck and darted back into the outside lane. "If it's all right 
with you, I'd like to go to the record store first. It's really too early 
for lunch-we could stop for a bite on our way back, unless you're absolutely 
starving." 

"I can wait," Rosalie said. "Anyway, you're probably impatient to get to the 
store before all the bargains are gone. Let's go there first." 

The record store was part of a shopping center set back from the highway. 
Satterfield made a sharp right turn off onto an arching cloverleaf that led 
into the parking area. On a Monday morning, the shopping center was quiet 
and relatively empty. Rosalie followed him across the paved plaza to the 
music shop. 

There was something excitingly wicked, she thought, about going off for a 
drive with another woman's husband. It gave Rosalie a feeling of getting 
some slight degree of revenge on Bud for what he had pulled Saturday night. 
And the urbane and sophisticated Satterfield fascinated her. 

They entered the record store. Satterfield made his way to the opera section 
as though he knew just where to go. 

"What operas are you looking for?" Rosalie asked. 

"There's a new recording of Turandot," Satterfield said. "It's my favorite 
Puccini but for Gianni Schicchi. And I want to pick up that imported 
pressing of the Beecham Magic Flute, and perhaps the Bernstein Falstaff, if 
it's around. Do you like opera, Rosalie?" 

"Some. I mean, I don't really know too much about it. I once went to the 
Metropolitan." 

"To see what?" 

"Aida, I think. It was a long time ago. I wish I knew more about music, and 
good books, and things like that. But I've always been busy, going to school 
or working." 

"Well, now you'll have plenty of time to learn. At least, until you begin 
raising a family." 

Rosalie's cheek muscles tightened. Each reminder of the future upset her. 
She was assailed by doubts, not knowing where she would be the next day, let 
alone a year or two from then. 

"I suppose," she said noncommittally. 

"I could lend you some records," Satterfield said. "To help you get familiar 
with the great masterpieces." 

Rosalie smiled. "Bonnie Campbell made the same offer. But I don't have a 
phonograph." 

"Well, then, you could come over to our place and listen whenever you felt 
like it." 

"Oh, I couldn't." 

"Peggy wouldn't mind." Satterfield pulled several albums down from the 
shelves. "It wouldn't be any trouble at all," he said. He glanced at her. 
"Do you know Bonnie well?" 

"Not really. We've spent a couple of hours together." 

"You like her?" 

"Very much. She's really sweet." 

"A very interesting girl," Satterfield said oddly. "But a pity she's 
so-different." 

"Different? How?" 

"You mean you didn't notice anything unusual about Bonnie?" 

"No," Rosalie said perplexedly. "What do you mean?" 

"You are young," Satterfield said. 

But he refused to elaborate on the subject of Bonnie Campbell. Instead, he 
turned back to the record shelves and went on picking records. When he had 
five or six different opera albums, he nodded in satisfaction and carried 
them over to the checkout desk. 

Rosalie was awed to see that the bill came to better than forty dollars. 
That was a huge amount to spend just on phonograph records, she thought. 
But, then, Satterfield was obviously a wealthy man. He didn't even pay by 
cash or check, merely handing the girl a credit card. 

They returned to the car and stored the albums in the trunk. 

"A good day's shopping," Satterfield said. "These records should see me 
through weeks of boredom." 

"Are you often bored?" 

"At least an hour a day," he said, with a gay smile. "It's the curse of the 
non-working classes. I mean, one could drink a martini every time one felt a 
little out of sorts, but that's hardly wise. I lose myself in music instead. 
I buy records the way some men buy narcotics-or women." 

"I suppose you wouldn't need women, having such a beautiful wife yourself." 

"Yes, Peggy's a jewel. But she's frequently away from home during the 
day-always popping into New York City to see an art exhibition or a movie. I 
sometimes feel it's a great problem to fill up all the hours of the day. I 
often feel tempted to go to work." 

"Have you ever worked?" Rosalie asked in awe, as he started the car. 

"Oh, Lord, yes!" Satterfield grinned. "In Wall Street. My father bought me a 
seat on the Exchange when I was twenty-two. Just after the war, you know. I 
slaved away down there for better than ten years. Then my father died, in 
fifty-eight, and between what I had inherited and what I'd managed to put by 
for myself, I had enough so there wasn't any real reason to continue 
working. For some of them, it's a big game, you know. They've already got 
more millions than they can count, but they go on piling up more, partly to 
see how much they can grab and partly because they don't know what else to 
do with themselves. And, of course they wear out early. I didn't want to go 
that way." 

"Of course not." 

"So I sold my seat in the summer of fifty-eight, and shifted a lot of my 
holdings into income securities, and I've been a coupon-clipper ever since. 
If I can have an income of twenty or thirty thousand without working, why 
work? Peggy and I bought the trailer, and we've been on the move ever since. 
A year in Mexico-then off to the Canadian Rockies for a while-down to 
Florida-San Francisco-yes, we've been around quite a bit." 

"It sounds wonderful," Rosalie said. "How can you possibly ever get bored?" 

"You'd be surprised," Satterfield said grimly. He pulled off the road. 
"Here's lunch. This is one of the nicest places around here, by the way." 

As she got out of the car, her breasts pushed tightly against her sweater, 
practically in Satterfield's face. For a weird moment, he stared at her, 
eyes thin with what seemed clearly to be lust. Then he recovered his poise. 

They entered the restaurant. 

 CHAPTER SIX 

It was a place she and Bud had seen during the week, and they had almost 
gone to eat there, except that it looked too expensive. As Rosalie opened 
the menu, she saw that their guess had been right. Even a lowly turkey 
sandwich was two dollars. Steak was seven dollars and fifty cents. Not that 
she wanted steak, anyhow. But the place was really beyond her means. It was 
a good thing Satterfield was going to take the check. 

He insisted on drinks before they ate. Rosalie was reluctant, but he pressed 
a martini on her. She had never had one before, she admitted blushingly. 
"Like it?" he asked after her first, hesitant sip. "It's-kind of bitter, 
isn't it?" she said. "But good." 

"They know how to make them here. Five to one, and ice-cold. You'll probably 
never get a better martini in any restaurant on route seventeen." 

She continued to sip, and felt herself relaxing in Satterfield's presence. 
He seemed to have a constant flow of chatter, very little of it significant. 
He talked about politics, about the weather, about the pleasures of 
trailer-camp life, about his travels, about the disadvantages of retiring at 
the age of thirty-four. It gave Rosalie an agreeably sophisticated feeling 
simply to be sitting across the table from him in this elegant restaurant, 
even though she knew her share of the conversation was limited mostly to 
inarticulate little half-sentences that broke up the nearly monologic flow 
of Satterfield's words from time to time. 

As the meal progressed, Rosalie became aware of two facts, both of them 
drawn more from inference than from anything Satterfield had actually said: 

That he did not have a very happy marriage, whatever the surface appearance. 

That he was very much attracted sexually to Rosalie Richards. 

The latter fact seemed all too apparent from the way his glittering eyes 
studied her, the way he took cautious little glimpses at her face, her 
thrusting breasts, her throat. He seemed almost to be preening himself to 
impress her, like a male peacock putting on an act for a female he 
particularly desired. Rosalie was more flattered than annoyed by this 
attention. 

The relationship between Satterfield and his wife seemed harder to pinpoint. 
But he seemed to be saying that though they lived together as man and wife, 
and presented an outward facade of perfect compatibility, actually there was 
a yawning gulf between them. His references to Peggy's trips into the city 
seemed to imply that she met lovers there just as frequently as she toured 
the art galleries. Oblique statement also led Rosalie to believe that he, 
too had had a long series of love affairs, with the full knowledge of his 
wife. Perhaps it was the sophisticated way of living, Rosalie thought. 
Perhaps it was the thing to do, among the very rich. Yet she got the 
distinct impression that this idle man with his hollow, childless marriage 
was fiercely unhappy, unfulfilled in life. 

And she found herself overpoweringly drawn to him-physically. The 
realization troubled her. He was a handsome, dashingly debonair man, no 
doubt about that. But he was more than twice her age, for one thing. For 
another, he was married. For still another, so was she. 

Still on my honeymoon, practically-and already thinking about having a love 
affair, Rosalie thought with a peculiarly icy clarity. And my husband 
already unfaithful to me. After just eight days. This isn't a marriage, it's 
a joke! 

"You know what I'd like right now, Frank?" she asked suddenly. 

"Name it and it's yours." 

"Another martini." 

"Your wish is my command," Satterfield smiled. He waved to a passing waiter. 
"George, another round of martinis, would you please?" 

She sipped the second drink avidly. She liked the coldness of it, the clear, 
bitter taste, the transparency of the fluid. A martini was a hard, 
uncompromising, clear-cut kind of drink. Rosalie could see why they were so 
popular. Especially among troubled people. 

By the time they came to dessert, she was not only full, but slightly tipsy. 
She was laughing too loudly at everything Satterfield was saying, and he 
seemed a little nonplussed at the way she appeared to transform commonplaces 
into gem-like epigraphs as they left his lips. Neither of them had coffee. 
Satterfield signaled unobtrusively for the check, and paid for it with the 
same credit; card he had used at the music shop. 

It was mid-afternoon, nearly two o'clock. The fresh air felt bracing. 
Rosalie walked a little unsteadily toward the car, and dipped into her seat 
as though she had no bones. 

Satterfield drove quickly, almost recklessly, back to the trailer camp. He 
pulled into a vacant parking space, braking so emphatically it snapped 
Rosalie sharply forward. They got out. 

"That was fun," she said. "Thanks ever so much for taking me out. I was 
really so bored and unhappy when you saw me before." 

"As was I. We've done each other a mutual favor." 

"And I'd like to hear some of your records sometime," Rosalie added. 

Satterfield flashed a thin smile. "How about right now?" he suggested. "You 
won't have to begin preparing dinner for your hubby for a couple of hours 
yet, will you? That's time to hear at least four or five sides of Mozart, I 
think." 

She hesitated only a fraction of an instant before nodding her agreement. 

They entered the Satterfield trailer. Now that the crowd of partygoers was 
not present, the trailer looked huge inside, with its long living room and 
imposing bedrooms. Satterfield indicated an armchair facing the stereo 
speakers. 

"Relax," he said. "I'll get a couple of martinis out of the 'fridge, and 
then we can hear the music. The Magic Flute, I think." 

He went into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with two glistening 
martinis. Rosalie accepted one gratefully and leaned back, kicking off her 
shoes. Satterfield set his glass down on a table and told her, "You go ahead 
and have your drink without waiting for me, love. It'll get all warm while 
I'm unpacking the records and finding the right one." 

She sipped the drink. Satterfield opened the wrapping of the bulky package, 
and searched through the albums for the one he wanted. As he put the disc on 
the turntable he said, "Don't bother much about the story. It's a pretty 
silly one, anyhow. Just listen to the music. Try to get the feel of it. It's 
absolutely glorious, every single note of it." 

The overture sounded out. Rosalie settled back to listen. 

The transition from listening to music to making love was almost 
inperceptible. She had known it would happen from the moment she had entered 
the trailer-perhaps from the moment she had first stepped into Satterfield's 
car. The transition came when she finished her martini, and rose to put it 
down on the bar table, and came within a foot of where Satterfield stood 
absorbed in the music. 

Then she turned and he turned, and they were in each other's arms, pressed 
tightly against one another, his thin lips encircling hers, his tongue 
seeking entry to her mouth. 

Still locked in the deep kiss, they backed through the corridor and into the 
end bedroom, the one where Jim Burkhart had made his clumsy attempt at a 
rape. They stood by the bed, and Satterfield undressed her with deft skill, 
neither of them speaking a word. 

Rosalie did not dare to think about what was happening to her. She simply 
let him remove her clothes. Her sweater dropped to the floor, and a moment 
later so did her slacks. All she wore now was a bra and a pair of filmy 
panties. His glittering eyes were riveted hungrily on her body, and there 
was a strange smile of triumph on his lips. He reached around in back, 
unsnapping the hook of her bra, and it fell away, and she felt a moment of 
shame, then banished it. Her breasts rose, proudly bare. He took them in his 
hands, cupping the warm ripely rounded fullness of them. She felt the 
nipples growing stiff. 

His fingers slid down the silkiness of her body, to the waistband of her 
panties. He pulled them over her ample hips. He seized the firm flesh of her 
buttocks in his hand and squeezed hard. His fingers were not thick and 
strong, like Bud's. They were long and tapering and wiry, a pianist's 
fingers. Satterfield's touch was terribly delicate. 

She smiled anxiously at him and started to unbutton his shirt. 

His body was narrow-shouldered and lean, almost fleshless, a sharp contrast 
to Bud's muscular sturdiness. They embraced in the middle of the floor, and 
tumbled onto the bed, and then she was up against him, breathing hard, 
whispering, nibbling his ears, crawling all over him, making use of all the 
new sensual skills Bud had taught her in the last week. 

He clung to her warmth. 

And then he was on top of her. 

And her loins were on fire with need, and her thighs were spread as far 
apart as they could go, and she thrust her body upward abruptly against the 
rigid cock of him, and they came together and he went deep into her, and 
everything was warm and moist and wonderful, and they rocked together and 
eddies of pleasure went through her, the guilty pleasure of doing something 
forbidden. 

Somewhere within her mind, isolated by layers of alcohol, a puritan whisper 
warned her that she should not be doing this, but she ignored it. She arched 
her back high off the bed, and he clung to her, his hands tight on her 
breasts, and she dug her fingers into the muscles of his back and began to 
talk, a senseless gibberish of pleasure punctuated by little, indrawn sighs 
of breath. 

They gasped together in the ecstasies of lust, body against sweating body, 
lips joined, hips rocking urgently the solid rod of his passions sliding 
back and forth in the well-lubricated cleft of her body, until the moment of 
release came like a thunderclap for her, and she bit down deep into his 
shoulder and gasped out her pleasure, and at the same moment felt the quiver 
and jolt of his body as he attained full delight, and it was over. Over. 

She lay still for a moment, still locked in his embrace. Then she pushed 
Satterfield away and rolled over onto her side. 

Adulteress! she thought. 

She shook the thought away. 

That evens the score, Bud Richards she told herself vehemently. You cheat 
me, I cheat you. God kelp us both! 

Satterfield's tapering fingers encircled the swelling globe of one breast. 

"Rosalie-" 

She turned around to face him. He was smiling. His face was flushed with 
pleasure. 

She was sober, now, completely and utterly sober. There had been pleasure, 
and there had been a sort of revenge, and now there was fear and guilt. She 
removed his hand from her breast. She averted her eyes from his nakedness. 

"I think I'd better go right now, Frank," she said quietly. 

Rosalie dressed in silence. Satterfield, nude, lay back on the bed, his arms 
behind his head. He regarded her with a sort of detached fascination, as 
though she were some particularly complex wind-up doll that he had bought in 
a Left Bank antique shop in Paris. He did not speak until she had donned her 
brassiere and her panties and was stepping into her slacks. 

"I suppose you'll have all sorts of guilt feelings about this, Rosalie?" 

"Let's not talk about it." 

"I wouldn't want you to suffer the pangs of conscience on my account," 
Satterfield said. "I think it's only fair to let you know that what you've 
done today has been to balance the books, both for yourself and for me. You 
ought to know that Bud has stayed with my wife Peggy on a number of 
occasions." 

Rosalie glanced obliquely at him. "Anything Bud did before I married him is 
none of my business." 

"Commendable. But the most recent encounter between your husband and my wife 
took place after you married him, Rosalie." 

"What?" 

"It was on Wednesday," Satterfield said in a dry, precise voice. "Bud drove 
to the shopping center to get some grocery supplies for you, didn't he?" 

"I suppose--yes. Yes, he did." 

"Peggy was at the shopping center too. They left it together, stopped off at 
a motel she frequently uses when I'm at home, and made love. The whole 
interlude took less than half an hour. They were home from shopping by three 
in the afternoon, and a good time was had by all." 

"How do you know all this?" 

"Because Peggy told me." 

"Told you?" 

Satterfield smiled whimsically. "We've been married much too long to bother 
hiding our infidelities from each other, my child. Peggy assumed-and 
rightly-that I'd be amused to hear that a bridegroom of four days could be 
seduced. Or rather, could be interested in seducing her. I understand your 
Bud was quite eager." 

"Stop it!" Rosalie cried. 

"I just wanted to ease your conscience," Satterfield said blandly. "To let 
you know that the precedent of infidelity has already been set in your 
family." 

"Are you going to tell Peggy about-about what we did today? I'm sure it'll 
amuse her!" 

"I was planning to tell her, yes." 

"And the next time she sleeps with Bud, she'll repeat to him what you told 
her, just as you've told me what Peggy told you. So Bud will find out about 
us." 

Satterfield frowned. "Peggy can be trusted." 

"Can you?" 

"I thought you should know-" 

Rosalie stared at him intently. "All right," she said. "Go tell Peggy 
everything we did this afternoon. And she'll treat it as a joke and tell 
Bud. And Bud will kill you!" 

"Don't be absurd." 

"I'm making perfect sense," Rosalie went on urgently. "Do you think every 
husband is willing to let his wife have affairs behind his back? You, maybe. 
But you aren't typical. Bud would blow up sky high if he ever found out 
about us. I know that." 

"Three cheers for the good old double standard," Satterfield said mockingly. 

"Call it anything you like. I tell you Bud will be furious. No matter how 
guilty his own record is. He could kill you. He might just do it." 

Satterfield looked genuinely worried, now. "I hadn't realized he might be as 
old-fashioned as all that." 

"Well, he is. So you just keep any gossip you have to peddle away from 
Peggy." 

She zipped up her slacks, tucked in her sweater. Without looking at 
Satterfield again, Rosalie bade him a curt good-bye and left his trailer. 

Her head pounded fiercely. The day's chaotic events had left her limp, 
emotionally exhausted. 

Bud stood revealed doubly as an adulterer now. The evidence had come from 
two different sources-Rhona and Satterfield-and it was too great to laugh 
off. He had stayed with Peggy Satterfield on Wednesday afternoon and had 
made love to Rhona Macklin Saturday night, all in their first week of 
married life. 

A casual sinner. And now I'm one of the gang, too, she thought bitterly. 

It had been no accident, she knew. Satterfield had shrewdly sized her up as 
being ripe for seduction from the moment she had entered his sports car. 
And, she realized, she had been ripe. The conversation with Rhona Macklin 
had been the triggering factor. She had left Rhona's place ready to go to 
bed with the first man who asked her, and Satterfield had come along at the 
strategic time. 

She entered her trailer, letting the screen door slam. The living room clock 
told her it was twenty minutes after three. Still lots of afternoon left. 

Going into the bedroom, Rosalie stripped off her clothes and surveyed her 
naked body. There was no way of telling, from the external appearance, that 
she had been unfaithful. Satterfield's questing hands had left no damning 
imprints on the high, white mounds of her breasts. His lips had not scarred 
her. His eager, lustful gaze had not burned eye tracks into her soft skin. 

You can't tell a thing by looking at me, she thought. 

Her body still seemed as virginal as it had been ten days before, when she 
was still on the other side of the border between girlhood and womanhood. 
Yet in that short span of time, she had become not only a wife but a cheated 
wife, not only a cheated wife but an adulteress herself. The rapidity with 
which ft had all happened overwhelmed her. Less than two months before she 
had been a girl barely out of her teens, a kid. And now she was a woman, 
catapulted into a tangling network of conflicts and silent betrayals. 

Rosalie got under the shower, scrubbing herself vehemently as though to rid 
herself of the last vestiges of Satterfield's touch. When she emerged, she 
put on fresh clothes, then sat down for a long while in the living room, 
staring at the pattern in the scatter-rugs. She wished she could make just a 
few small changes in the universe--to blot out the things she and Bud had 
done wrong in the last couple of days. They had been so happy together for 
the first few days of their marriage. Why had he gone to other women? Why 
had he ruined everything? 

The minutes ticked away. 

It was past four o'clock. Bud would be home a little after five. She had 
planned to fix a fancy dinner for him, something out of the French cookbook 
she had received as a wedding present. Something with plenty of fine sauces, 
with elegant trimmings. There was a bottle of red wine in the closet that 
they had bought on Tuesday, and Rosalie had planned to open it for this, the 
first meal she would be cooking for a husband returning from work. 

But she had no appetite, no enthusiasm at all for the task. Her spirits were 
way down. Rosalie felt utterly depressed. 

What am I going to do? she asked herself, over and over again. 

Confront him directly? Present the evidence that she had gathered from Rhona 
and from Satterfield, and demand to know why he had found it necessary to 
step outside the marriage bed? 

No. 

He might deny it, or he might grow angry and hit her, or he might head over 
to Rhona's and try to force her to retract her statement. But none of that 
would really settle the problem. 

Tell him that she was unfaithful now too? 

No. That would shatter the marriage in an instant. She didn't want the kind 
of marriage the Satterfields had. She wanted a marriage founded on mutual 
love and trust and need, not one founded on cynical sophisticated adultery. 
Once she confessed what she had done, she would lose Bud's trust forever. 
There would be no hope for repairing what already was beginning to look 
irreparable. What then? 

For a long while, Rosalie pondered the situation. And. slowly, an snwer 
presented itself. 

Make yourself indispensable to him. Make yourself all the woman he can ever 
need. Become so important to him that he won't even daydream about other 
women, let alone make passes at them. 

She wondered what she could do beyond what she was already doing. Certainly 
she had been nothing if not laving and responsive to him. She had never 
denied him her lips, her body, her entire self. They had made love every 
night but one of their marriage-and still he could not get enough, 
apparently, or he would not go elsewhere. 

Well, no matter. The path to follow, she decided, was one of love and 
understanding and toleration. At least for the time being. Perhaps Bud would 
come to his senses, would come to some true understanding of the meaning of 
the marriage bond. If not- 

If not, there were always the divorce courts. But Rosalie hoped matters 
wouldn't get that far. 

I love him, she thought fiercely. Despite everything-I love him! I want us 
to be able to make a go of it! 

After a short while, her mood began to brighten, and she returned to the 
kitchen and set to work with a will. The mere act of preparing the meal-of 
going through the mechanical gestures involved in whipping sauces and 
slicing meat-took her mind away from her troubles. She allowed the 
complicated and still unfamiliar routine of cookery to become a comforting 
cradle that rocked away all worry. 

Shortly before five, everything was under control in the kitchen. Within 
five minutes she could have everything simmering and ready to serve. She 
felt pleased with the way she had coordinated everything. 

Taking a bottle of gin and one of vermouth from their sparsely populated 
liquor cabinet, she set about mixing martinis. Bud would appreciate being 
greeted with a cold drink when he came home. Out of a million little touches 
like that, Rosalie thought, a lasting relationship could be cemented. 

Let's see, now. Four parts gin to one part of vermouth. So for two martinis 
of three ounces apiece you need-umm-practically five ounces of gin and about 
an ounce and three eighths of vermouth. Okay. 

She measured it out into the cocktail shaker, figuring the fractional ounce 
as best she could. 

Add ice. There. Now shake. 

She agitated the mixer vigorously for a couple of moments, until the clear 
liquid foamed. She put the martinis in the refrigerator. After a moment's 
thought she took two cocktail glasses from the shelf and popped them into 
the refrigerator to get chilled. 

Five after five. She was trembling slightly in apprehension. 

Remember, you don't know a thing about Bud's escapades, and you didn't sleep 
with Frank Satterfield today. You love Bud very much. Very much indeed. 

She walked to the kitchen window and stared out at the parking area in back, 
waiting as the minutes passed. Quarter after five. He ought to be home any 
minute. The missile plant was just a short drive up the road from the 
trailer camp. Twenty after five. 

A dilapidated green Buick was pulling into the parking area. Rosalie's loins 
trembled. Bud was home. 

 CHAPTER SEVEN 

Moving quickly, Rosalie went to the refrigerator and poured the two martinis 
into the chilled glasses. A moment later, the front door opened. 

"Anybody home?" Bud called. 

"Only me," Rosalie replied. She emerged from the kitchen, looking cozily 
domestic with her apron over her tight slacks, and held out her arms. She 
flashed a warm smile. You don't know a thing about Rhona Macklin, she told 
herself sternly. 

"Darling," she murmured. "I've been so lonesome." 

"Eight horrible hours," Bud said. "I missed you, 'baby. I haven't been away 
from you this long since we got married. I thought the afternoon would last 
forever." 

His arms were around her now, gripping her tightly. His lips sought hers 
hungrily. His big hands rubbed her back, pressing hard, then grasped her 
buttocks and jammed her against him. She trembled in his powerful embrace, 
and as he held her the whole long terrible day seemed to fade into 
insignificance, the revelations of Rhona and Satterfield, the adulterous 
interlude, everything becoming only an insubstantial dream. 

"I love you," he whispered. "Baby, do you know how much I love you?" 

"Tell me, Bud." 

"I wish I could. But I don't have words for it. There aren't any words 
invented." 

"Invent some." 

"Not my line of work," he said. His hands were on her sweater now, rubbing 
up and down over the soft fabric that covered her breasts. He released her 
after a moment, and she saw the stark desire in his eyes, the need-the need 
for her, she wondered, or just for a woman, any woman at all? 

"You have a hard time getting used to work again?" she asked. 

"Horrible. And all the fellows razzing me. Wanting to see pictures of the 
bride." 

"You show them any?" 

"I told them I was taking home movies of you in the nude, and that I'd 
charge admission. Honey, we could make millions if we only had a movie 
camera! You should have seen their eyes light up!" 

"Why take movies? You could sell them the real thing for an even better 
price," Rosalie suggested. 

"You wouldn't go for that, would you?" 

"You bet I won't. Now suppose you go sit down in the living room and take 
your shoes off. I've got a surprise for you, Bud." 

"A home movie camera?" 

"You should live so long. Go on. Sit!" 

He ambled into the living room. She took the two martinis from the 
refrigerator. 

"Close your eyes and open your mouth," she ordered. 

"Okay. But I don't mind telling you I'm a little uneasy about all this." 

"So am I," she said. She bent, put the cold glass to his lips, poured a 
little of the drink into his mouth. He frowned as the cold lqiuid touched 
his tongue, then swallowed and smiled. 

"A martini?" he asked. 

"Right the first time. You can open your eyes now. Like it?" 

"Very good indeed." He opened his eyes and took the glass from her. After a 
second sip he nodded his approval and said, "A really professional job. 
Where'd you learn to make martinis?" 

"I used to be a lady bartender. Another secret out of my checkered past." 

"And how'd you know I wanted one right now?" 

"I was a lady mind-reader too," she said. 

She sampled the martini. Yes, it was good-perhaps not up to the smoothness 
of the one she had had at lunch-she had shaken it-but certainly a good 
imitation thereof. She felt a moment of pain at the thought that it was 
Frank Satterfield who had bought her her first martini, Frank Satterfield 
who had told her how they were made. Every time she drank or served a 
martini, she thought, the name of Frank Satterfield would come to her mind 
... and the memory of her nude body, wide-open and hot for him. 

Bud downed the drink quickly. "Got a refill?" 

"No go, pardner. There's a good supper coming up, and I want you to be sober 
enough to taste it." 

"Spaghetti and meatballs?" 

"Don't be silly. I made beef bourguinonne. Or however you pronounce it." 

"A regular chef as well as a bartender?" 

"I've got lots of talents you never suspected." 

"So I'm discovering. Come here." 

"Aren't you hungry?" 

"Sure I am. But dinner can wait. I'm hungry for something else." 

"Everything will spoil." 

His hands were on her breasts, now. He was breathing hard. He said, "You 
bring out the beast in me." 

"Well, just let go of me, wolf man. I slaved all afternoon to make you a 
fabulous French dinner. We can go to bed any old time-" 

"Like right now." 

"Like right after dinner," she said, crisply disengaging his hand from her 
taut, firm flesh and heading for the kitchen. She hoped she hadn't made a 
mistake by refusing to give in to him just then. But it was a pity to spoil 
such a good supper. He wouldn't be terribly upset if he had to wait a couple 
of hours to make love. 

Everything was on the table in short order. Rosalie called him in, told him 
to pour the wine. She was tensely apprehensive, wanting so badly to have 
everything go just right. 

It did. Dinner turned out even better than Rosalie had dared to hope, and 
the wine was superb. Bud was all smiles as he helped her with the dishes 
afterward. 

Strange, she thought. It's just as-as though we were still honeymooners. Yet 
I know he isn't satisfied with me, or he wouldn't have gone to those other 
women. 

They had just about finished the dishes when the doorbell rang. Rosalie 
exchanged a puzzled glance with Bud. Company? When they had decided to 
settle down for a pleasant evening of making love? 

"I'll get it," she said thinly. 

She walked past him to the door and opened it to find Jim Burkhart staring 
at her. Rosalie shifted her feet uneasily under his frankly appraising, 
lustful gaze and said in a cool voice, "Yes?" 

"Hope I didn't disturb you at dinner, Mrs. Richards?" 

"We were finished already. What do you want?" Bud came strolling out. 
"Evening, Jim. What's up?" 

Burkhart shrugged. "Having a sort of party tonight, Bud. Wondered if you and 
the missus would be interested in coming over for a while." 

"Afraid we wouldn't," Rosalie said quickly. "We had other plans for the 
evening." 

"Hold it, Rosalie," Bud said. "Let's see what's what." He looked at 
Burkhart. "Who's going to be at the party, anyhow?" 

"Small bunch. Joy and Nick Robbins, Lew and Bets Longstreet, me and Paula, 
maybe the two of you. We figured we'd play a little cards." Burkhart leered. 
"You know." 

"What time?" Bud asked. 

"Bud-" Rosalie began. 

"Around an hour from now," Burkhart said. "Give the kids a chance to get to 
sleep, you know. Say, maybe half-past eight, quarter to nine." 

"Maybe we'll make it," Bud said. "We'll talk about it some before we 
decide." 

"Sure hope you get there," Burkhart said. He tossed a provocative glance at 
Rosalie. "That card game could get mighty interesting tonight." 

When he had gone, Rosalie said, "I thought we were going to spend the 
evening together, Bud. Just the two of us in the bedroom." 

His eyes twinkled merrily. "I thought so too. But plans can always change. 
And this sounds interesting." 

"You know I don't like the Burkharts. And I don't even know the other 
people." 

"Good way to get to know them." 

"And what's this about playing cards? That's a dull way to spend an 
evening." 

"Not the way they play." 

"What do you mean?" 

"They play strip poker," Bud said. Rosalie blinked in astonishment. "You 
want us to go next door and play strip poker?" 

"Why not?" 

"Well-well-" She hesitated. "I suppose it turns into some kind of dirty orgy 
afterward. Everybody jumping for everyone else's wife." 

Bud shook his head. "You think I'd let one of those guys put a finger on 
you, sweet?" He chuckled. "Listen, this isn't going to be any gory orgy. 
It's just a pleasantly spicy way to spend an evening. It goes on all the 
time around here, baby. It's the fad among the married folk this season. 
Hey, you aren't ashamed to peel a little, are you?" 

"Not in front of you, Bud. But in front of all those others-" 

"You sound awfully prudish tonight," Bud said. "I don't know. It's one thing 
not to want to have sex because dinner will burn, but-" 

He wanted badly to go to the card party. Rosalie saw. She felt strangely 
troubled about it. The idea of having anything to do with the Burkharts 
disgusted her. And strip poker- 

But, she told herself, she had to appear to be a regular girl, one of the 
gang. If she played the part of an old stick-in-the-mud, she'd lose Bud all 
the faster. And maybe going to a party of that sort would serve to release 
some of the sexual steam he wanted to let off-in a harmless way, right under 
her eye. It was better to play strip poker, she decided, than to have him go 
sneaking off to motels or bushes with the other women of the trailer camp. 

Rosalie flashed an impish smile. "Okay," she said. "You can tell Jim that 
we'll come. It ought to be a novel experience for me, anyway. The last time 
I played strip poker I was fourteen years old, and we agreed in advance to 
stop at underwear." 

About half-past eight, they went across to the Burkhart trailer. The other 
couples were there already, laughing and cracking jokes just a little too 
loudly. Everyone seemed a trifle tense and sheepish about the game that was 
going to be played. 

Jim Burkhart took care of the introductions. The only people in the group 
that Rosalie did not know at all were the Longstreets. Lew Longstreet was a 
lean, blond-haired man in his late thirties, with a constant smile and 
shifty, uncertain eyes. His wife Bets was a short, almost petite woman with 
an air of fragility about her. Longstreet ran an electrician's shop in town, 
and said he lived in trailers for the sake of economy and mobility. 

The Robbinses, Nick and Joy, were people Rosalie had met at a couple of 
parties earlier in the week, and neither of them had made an overwhelming 
impression on her. Joy Robbins was a big, busty girl of about twenty-eight, 
with a long, black pony-tail, a voluptuous figure, and an irritating, 
high-pitched giggle. She had been carrying on an affair with Jim Burkhart 
for a long while, and neither of them seemed to go to any pains to hide that 
fact. 

Her husband was a sinister-looking sort with a bristly crew cut, a dark 
complexion, a beak of a nose, and a downturned, V-shaped mouth. He had to be 
called ugly, yet there was something almost repel-lently fascinating about 
him. He was a draftsman at the same missile base where Bud worked. 

There was a moment of tension after the introductions. Then Jim Burkhart 
pointed to several bottles of liquor standing on a cupboard and said, 
"Anyone who wants, just help themselves. There's lots for all." 

"Get me a drink," Rosalie said to Bud. 

With a bit of bourbon in her, she felt more relaxed. Paula Burkhart brought 
out some folding chairs and put them around the card table. Jim Burkhart 
produced a deck of cards and began to riffle them nervously. 

There was suddenly an air of expectation in the room, an almost crackling 
tension. Since, Rosalie assumed, these people had all played this game with 
each other before, the anticipation could only be due to the presence of a 
newcomer among them. 

Herself. 

Burkhart said, "We ready to start?" 

"Might as well," Nick Robbins said. "Everyone's here, right?" 

"Looks that way," Burkhart agreed. 

The eight of them settled in around the card table. After a moment of 
hesitation, Burkhart said, "I guess I better explain the standard rules for 
the benefit of Rosalie here, huh?" 

"You'd better," Rosalie said. She took another sip of the drink. All eyes 
seemed to be on her, as though both men and women were eager to see her 
undress. 

Burkhart said, "First of all, since there's eight of us and only fifty-two 
cards, we got to limit ourselves to five-card poker. If we play stud, it's 
okay. If we play draw, then you can only draw a certain number of cards. 
What's the figure, Lew?" 

"First four people to the left of the dealer can draw up to two cards 
apiece," Longstreet said. "The other four can only draw one card apiece 
unless some of the first people don't take both cards." 

"That doesn't sound fair to the second four," Rosalie objected. 

"It averages out," Burkhart said. "Now, about stakes. We usually put in five 
bucks a couple. That agreeable with everybody?" 

No one objected. Rosalie said, "Who gets the pot?" 

"Well, it's like this," Burkhart explained. "We play each hand, and the one 
who's got the lowest hand has to take off one item of clothing. It keeps on 
going around, you know." 

"I understand that." 

"Okay, then. Now, we can divide the kitty two ways. We can split it between 
the person who gets stark naked first and the one who keeps a piece of 
clothing longer than the others, or we can give the whole pot to the one who 
holds out the longest. Sometimes we do it one way, sometimes the other." 

"It was high-low last time," Joy Robbins said. "Let's not split it this 
time." 

"I agree," Longstreet said. 

Burkhart looked around the room. "Okay," he said. "The twenty bucks goes to 
whoever can keep an article of clothing the longest. Now, there's just one 
more rule." 

"The equal start," Bets Longstreet said. 

"Yeah. We all have to start with the same number of articles. We allow eight 
items apiece. One pair of shoes, one pair of socks, one undershirt or bra, 
one pair of underpants, one pair of slacks, one shirt. Two, four, five, six, 
seven, eight. Things like wrist-watches, rings, earrings, slips, garter 
belts, stuff like that, don't count. Since all you girls have slacks on I 
figure we got no garter belts or slips to worry about. You all want to stop 
and check for a second now to make sure you got the right number of 
garments?" 

Rosalie counted up mentally. Yes, eight. 

Burkhart went on, "Okay, then, let's see those five-spots in the middle of 
the table. And then we cut for deal. It goes right around the table. Aces 
high, dealer decides on wild cards, and one suit's worth the same as any 
other. If two people both have the same low hand, they both take something 
off. Everybody got that?" 

There was general agreement. 

The deck was handed around to be cut for deal. Rosalie came up with an ace, 
and no one equalled it. She took the cards and began to shuffle them. 

She had played some poker in the past, not much, but enough to give her the 
general drift of the game. But she felt tight and nervous. She nearly lost 
control of the cards as she shuffled them. 

"Five-card stud," she announced. "Nothing wild." 

She dealt the closed cards out, then began putting down the face-up cards. 
Since there was no betting, the deal moved rapidly. By the third round, 
Longstreet had a pair of sevens on the board. No one else had anything 
showing. 

Rosalie handed out the final cards. "Pair of nines on the board," she said, 
as she put down Burk-hart's card. Longstreet still had his pair of sevens. 
"Okay," he said. "Let's turn up the hole cards and see what's what." 

"Three nines," Burkhart declared. 

"Pair of sevens," said Longstreet. 

They went around. Jack had ace-high; Joy Robbins, a pair of fours; her 
husband, queen high; Paula, also queen high; Bets Longstreet, nothing but a 
jack. 

Rosalie turned her hole card over and studied it. Five, deuce, eight, ten, 
king. "King high," she said. 

"Looks like I start things off," Bets Longstreet grinned cheerfully. She 
removed one of her shoes and tossed it under her chair. 

Then the deal passed to Bud. It was five-card draw, and Rosalie managed to 
put together a pair of jacks. Joy Robbins was low this round, and one of her 
shoes came off. The deal passed to her. 

The early stages of the game were quiet. Hardly anyone spoke or moved, 
except to get a refill for his or her drink. The game would not begin to get 
exciting until all the shoes and stockings were out of the way. 

But by the tenth round, a pattern was beginning to take shape. Joy Robbins 
had had low hand three times, and had both of her shoes off and one sock. No 
one else had lost more than once, and so all the others were tied. Joy 
seemed to giggle continually over her predicament-especially when, on the 
next round, she could muster nothing better than four-fifths of a flush in 
spades, ten high. She giggled again as she discarded her remaining sock. 

Her original eight articles of clothing were cut in half, by then, and 
everyone else had lost but one shoe apiece. "I hope I start winning soon," 
Joy chuckled. "It's going to be awfully cold waiting for you people to catch 
up." 

"You've got the law of averages running with you," Longstreet assured her. 

But the law of averages seemed to have been repealed that evening. Bud was 
the victim on the next hand, and then Joy lost again. All eyes were on her. 
She hesitated only a moment, then unbuttoned her shirt. She was wearing a 
lacy, pink bra that seemed to be about to burst under the strain of keeping 
her big breasts in check. 

Then the luck of the cards shifted, and began to run against Lew Longstreet. 
He dropped three out of the next dozen hands, while Joy began to turn up 
straights and threes-of-a-kind with uncanny adeptness. Rosalie, Robbins, 
Burkhart, and Bets were down to one sock apiece; the others had merely 
discarded their shoes. The game was getting toward that critical point where 
soon, two or three people would be vulnerable. 

For a while the losses came almost in rotation. Longstreet lost his shirt, 
catching up with Joy. Bud had to give up both socks on successive hands. 
Rosalie lost her remaining sock, Paula one of hers, Bets her sock and her 
blouse as well. An air of tremendous suspense had taken full hold of the 
group. Who would be the first to show intimate flesh? Rosalie's initial 
distaste for the game had been replaced by a strange excitement. She handled 
her cards well, playing as though stakes of hundreds of dollars rode on each 
draw of the cards. 

"What do you have?" Longstreet asked. 

"Two jacks," Rosalie said. 

"Kings," Bud declared. 

"Nine high," said Joy in a small voice. 

It went around the table. Joy's hand once again was the lowest. She stood up 
to peel off her slacks. Only a bra and a pair of shiny, black panties stood 
between her and nudity. 

Rosalie dealt. Robbins turned up with the low hand, and discarded his second 
sock. The deal passed to Bud, and this time it was Paula who had to remove a 
sock. Joy dealt then, five-card stud again. There was a moment of taut 
silence after the fourth face-card had been put down. Rosalie had two nines 
showing, Bud an ace, Nick Robbins a pair of sevens, Paula two queens, 
Burkhart a jack, Bets a jack, Longstreet a king. The best thing in Joy's 
hand was a ten. She was beaten on the board, unless she could produce 
something out of the hole. 

"Let's see hole cards," Burkhart said. 

They were turned up. Bud added a second ace to his visible one. No one else 
could produce anything of importance. Everyone looked at Joy. She giggled. 

"I guess I did a lousy job of dealing to myself," she said, and turned up a 
solitary four. 

"Take it off, take it off!" Burkhart chortled. 

"Which is it, top or bottom?" Longstreet demanded. 

Joy looked flustered and red-faced. "The panties," she said. She reached 
under the table, and began to pull them off without getting up. 

"Uh-uh," Bud called out. "You got to stand up and show us!" 

"Who says? Since when's that in the rules?" 

"Come on," Jim Burkhart urged. "No hiding under the table." 

Joy shrugged and pushed back her chair, going to the middle of the floor to 
pull her panties down over her deep-set navel and the thick, black, curling 
triangle. Her body was plump through the hips, with fat, dimpled buttocks. 
Face flaming, she made her way back to her seat, clad only in her bra. 

The deal passed to her husband, who seemed quite nonchalant about his wife's 
exposure. He called for five-card draw, and the loser was Longstreet. He 
unbuttoned his pants and sat down again wearing briefs and undershirt. 

Round and round, the cards went. With one of the players on the verge of 
elimination from the game, tension mounted-but Joy maddeningly avoided 
losing another hand. Rosalie surrendered her last sock, and then her blouse. 
Burkhart gave up a sock, Paula her blouse, Robbins a sock and his shirt, 
Bets her slacks. 

"Who's winning?" Joy asked. "I know who's losing, but who's winning?" 

"Bud and Jim are tied," Paula said. "They've only lost their shoes and 
socks." 

But on the next round, Burkhart had to surrender his shirt. Paula lost next, 
giving up her pants, and then Longstreet came out low man and removed his 
undershirt, putting him, like Joy, one hand away from elimination. 

The cards went around again. Three kings for Burkhart, two tens for Bets, a 
flush for Longstreet, jack high for Rosalie-everyone had fairly good hands. 
All but Joy. The best she could produce was a broken straight. Burkhart 
whistled. 

Joy arose, giggling over her predicament. Her hands went behind her back and 
her bra came away. Her bare breasts tumbled free--heavy swaying breasts with 
big nipples and interlacing blue veins. Stark naked, Joy moved away from the 
table, losing any embarrassment over her nudity. She kept giggling, sending 
shivers through her fat, heavy hips and buttocks. 

"I'm going to get me a drink," she announced. Then I'll sit me down and 
watch the fun." 

The cards were dealt, there was a draw, and one by one the hands were faced. 
Rosalie had a pair of fives. Bud had ten high. Around it went. The loser was 
Burkhart, and he removed his trousers. 

Rosalie realized that she and Bud were doing better than the others, for 
some reason. Bud was still fully dressed except for his shoes and socks. She 
sat at the table in bra and slacks. Robbins, too, had three articles of 
clothing left. The others were down to only two, except for Longstreet, 
still wearing just his briefs, and Joy, who leaned against the wall, a 
thick-buttocked, nude nymph, looking, on with interest. 

On the next hand, Bud joined Rosalie and Rob-bins in the shirtless category. 
Then Robbins gave up his trousers. There was little conversation, merely the 
occasional clink of an ice cube in a glass. A lot of drinking was going on; 
a couple of the bottles were nearly empty, and everyone, Rosalie included, 
had a flushed, heated expression. 

Another hand was dealt. Rosalie produced a jumble of low cards, but 
Burkhart's were even lower, and he peeled off his undershirt. He and 
Longstreet were prime candidates for elimination. On the next hand, the 
loser was Bets Longstreet, and so she was faced with the choice of taking 
off brassiere or panties now. Face emotionless, she went for the bra. Her 
breasts were small and far apart, but nicely shaped and high. She returned 
to the table wearing only black panties with a red monogram. 

Longstreet was the next loser. 

He stood up, grinning. "That's it for me, ladies and gentlemen. Now you'll 
all see what you no doubt came here for." 

He removed his briefs. Not surprisingly, his maleness was in an aroused 
state. Somewhat self-consciously, Longstreet went to the bar, poured a 
drink, and then joined the equally nude Joy Robbins in the kibitzers' row 
along the wall. 

There were six players left. It was possible to draw three cards at a time, 
and that gave greater possibilities for assembling hands. On the next round, 
Rabbins drew a spade flush, Rosalie a straight, Bud a trio of nines. The 
loser was Paula, who removed her gauzy, practically transparent pink panties 
and sat down again clad just in her bra. 

The game was then in its critical stage. Almost every hand produced a 
revelation of nakedness. Bud dealt. Rosalie found herself with two kings and 
three nothings. In the draw, Bud took two, Robbins three, Paula and Burkhart 
one apiece, Bets two. Rosalie asked for three and was gratified to discover 
that one of them was a king. 

"Let's see them," Bud said. 

Robbins faced up first. "Three eights." 

"Sorry," Rosalie said. "Three kings here." 

Bud chuckled. "I'm sorry, too. I've got a straight, jack high." 

"Two threes," Paula said. "Not in this league at all." 

"Best I've got's a ten," Burkhart declared. 

Bets said nothing, merely putting down three sixes. She waited a moment, 
dramatically, and then casually added a pair of fives. 

"Full house," she said. 

"I'll be damned," Burkhart muttered. "A straight, a full house, and two 
triples. You'da been raising each other back and forth all night if we were 
playing for money." 

"But we aren't," Robbins said. "And you lose." 

"That's right, I do." Casually, Jim Burkhart divested himself of his briefs. 
He looked lean, almost skeletal. He sauntered over to wait with the other 
two losers for the final outcome. 

Robbins was low on the next hand and removed his undershirt. On the next, 
Rosalie lost her slacks, and now wore only panties. Bud met the same fate on 
the next hand, giving up his trousers. 

Bets lost next. She took off her final garment, her panties, revealing slim 
hips and narrow loins. Half of the players were nude. Rosalie saw the other 
three men-and a couple of the women-watching her with keen interest, almost 
impatience, as she stubbornly refused to lose. 

Paula was the victim on the next round. She removed her bra. Her breasts 
were big but well built, high and full and taut, with round aureoles and 
stiff little nipples. She stalked across the room, flesh jiggling 
voluptuously, to watch. 

Three players. Rosalie, Bud, and Robbins. The cards flew across the table. 
Rosalie picked them up, arranged them. Five of spades, eight of clubs, jack 
of spades, three spades, king of spades. In a cash game, she knew, she would 
probably have folded. Here, the smart thing was to go for the flush. 

"How many?" Robbins asked. 

"One," Rosalie said. 

"I'll take three," said Bud. 

Rosalie laughed in glee as she added the two of spades to her hand. There 
was no need to keep a poker face; bluffing didn't count for anything in this 
game. She put down the flush. Bud had a pair of nines, and Robbins-who had 
stood pat-an almost-straight. Shrugging, Robbins pulled off his briefs and 
left the table. 

"Can you beat that?" Longstreet laughed. 

"Richards versus Richards for the money." 

"We could just call it quits here and split the kitty," Rosalie said. It was 
like a scene out of a dream, sitting there in her brassiere and panties with 
six stark-naked strangers watching her. 

"None of that," Burkhart said sharply. "Play out the game!" 

"You deal," Bud told her. "We're tied right now." 

Bud lost the first round, and removed his undershirt. On the next round, 
Rosalie went with a pair of queens, hoping it would be enough, but Bud 
topped it with a triplet in sixes. 

"Take it off!" Burkhart sang. 

Rosalie's face blazed. She paused a moment, deciding between bra and 
panties, and after a second rolled the panties down over her hips to bare 
the triangle of womanhood, the firm cheeks of her buttocks. She felt all 
eyes on her. She felt the hot surge of a blush running as far down as her 
bare buttocks. Quickly, she returned to the table, heart pounding with 
shame. She crossed her legs as though that would fn some way hide her 
nakedness. 

Bud handed her the cards. She shuffled them, staring at this husband of hers 
who seemed not to care at all that she was almost nude in front of others. 

"Last hand," she said. "This one decides." 

She dealt them out. When she picked them up, she found that she had two 
nines, an ace, and two low cards. She handed the low ones in, picked two, 
and got nothing better. 

"Well?" she said. 

"Tens," Bud announced. 

"Nines," she said with a defeated smile. "The game's over." 

"The winnah!" Burkhart roared. "Bud Richards, the winnah and champeen!" 

"Take it off, Rosalie!" Longstreet called. 

"I'll be a sport and peel first," Bud said. "Just to show you." 

He stepped out of his briefs. 

Now everyone in the room was naked except for Rosalie. She had never felt so 
embarrassed in her life. But she knew that once this next barrier was past, 
the worst would be over. Her hands went to the clasps of her brassiere. They 
shook a little, but she worked the hooks apart, and the bra dropped away. 
Cool air surrounded her bare, blush-reddened breasts. 

She stood naked in this group of naked men and women. 

 CHAPTER EIGHT 

They were all staring at her. Rosalie knew why, too. Her breasts were not as 
big as Joy's, her body not as voluptuous as Paula's nor as petitely charming 
as Bets'. But it was new. These other men had played this game many times, 
perhaps. They were all familiar with each other's wives' bodies. But now a 
newcomer, young and beautiful, had come among them, and the advantage of 
novelty gave her a tremendous appeal for them. Even the women were staring, 
as though sizing up the new competition. 

She tried to be casual about it." 

"Well, that wasn't a hard way to make fifteen dollars, was it?" Rosalie said 
to Bud. "I suppose we can all get dressed now." 

She started to reach nervously for her underclothes. Jim Burkhart said, 
"What's the hurry, Rosa-he?" 

"The party's just starting," Lew Longstreet said. 

Rosalie looked uneasily around. Her eyes came to rest on Joy's overabundant 
nakedness, on Paula's shameless body, on Bets' small-breasted petiteness. 
And on the men, Bud big and muscular, Burkhart unhealthily lean, Robbins 
thick-bodied and hairy, Longstreet slim, youthful-looking. 

"What happens now?" she asked. 

"You have yourself another drink," Burkhart said. "I'll put on a little 
dance music." 

"In the nude-dancing?" she asked. 

"Why not?" Robbins guffawed. 

Burkhart turned on the phonograph and put on a slow foxtrot. Breasts 
swaying, Rosalie walked over to Bud, who was sitting quietly at the card 
table as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on. She looked down at 
him. 

"Bud, let's get out of here," she said, in a quiet, determined voice. 

"That wouldn't be nice, baby." 

"We came to play a card game. It's over with, and I want to go home." 

"Be a sport, Rosalie." 

"A sport? With nude dancing going on? And who knows what will happen next?" 

"Relax," Bud told her. "Don't make a scene, sweet. Just stay loose and 
remember that nobody here is going to make you do anything you don't want to 
do. We're just going to live it up a little bit." 

"You promised me this wouldn't turn into an orgy." 

"Give it fifteen minutes," he begged. "Just see if you aren't having a good 
time." 

"But-" 

Someone tapped her shoulder. "Mind if I have this dance, Rosalie?" 

It was Lew Longstreet. Rosalie looked at him doubtfully. 

"Go ahead," Bud urged. "Think I'll go do some dancing myself." 

He rose and crossed the room to the bar, where Paula Burkhart was fixing 
herself a drink. Rosalie watched as Bud asked her to dance, then folded her 
into his arms and swept her out into the middle of the floor. They were very 
close together. Rosalie saw how, in profile, Paula's huge breasts were 
pressed flat against Bud's chest. 

Nick Robbins was dancing with little Bets Long-street. Jim Burkhart had his 
bony arms around the fleshy body of Joy Robbins. Lew Longstreet smiled 
hopefully at Rosalie. 

She felt a surge of anger. Bud had tricked her into thinking this was 
nothing but a strip-poker game, while actually the card game had probably 
just been the prelude to a full-scale evening of wife-swapping. And there 
was Bud crawling all over that horrid Burkhart woman. 

I'll show him, she thought angrily. 

She held out her arms to Longstreet. He moved forward, meeting her, and they 
began to dance. 

At first Rosalie danced awkwardly with him, like a girl at her first formal, 
making sure that moonlight would be visible between their bodies. But the 
stiff, arms-length stance was not only ridiculous-looking but downright 
uncomfortable as well, and after a moment or two she relaxed and let 
Longstreet come closer. And after another couple of moments they were 
dancing very close indeed, as were the others in the room. 

The tips of Rosalie's bare breasts grazed Long-street's chest. Then he drew 
her tight, her breasts flattening out, her bare belly and hips rubbing up 
against his body in a sensual way as they moved through the slow, 
provocative rhythms of the dance. 

His right hand, which had been on her back, now slipped lower ... to the 
small of her back ... then an inch or two lower, to the place where the 
first, flaring curve of her buttocks began. He left it there. 

"Well, what do you think of trailer-camp life?" he asked, as they moved in a 
slow circle around a small area of the floor. "Different, isn't it?" 

"It certainly is." 

"We don't believe in formality, here. We scrap all the hampering 
restrictions of convention." 

"So I'm noticing. Rapidly." 

"You don't seem comfortably adjusted to this sort of life yet," Longstreet 
said. 

"It takes time," Rosalie told him. "It's quite a change from the sort of 
life I'm used to." 

"I'll bet. Think you're going to like it here?" 

"I hope so. 

"Bud's a hell of a great guy. You made a swell choice when you picked a 
husband." 

Rosalie didn't answer that. She had come to doubt it too much. 

Burkhart had dimmed the lights. The record on the phonograph was an LP that 
seemed to be made up entirely of slow, erotically-stirring dance music. She 
and Longstreet were moving slowly in rhythm. 

He was getting bolder. His hand was on her nude buttocks, moving up and down 
over the satiny smooth globular ripeness. His other hand trailed at his 
side, holding hers, but then he bent the arm upward, tucking it between 
their bodies to get his hand on her bare breast. Rosalie did not resist the 
contact. She glanced across the room and there, in the dim darkness, she 
could see her husband and Paula Burkhart glued so tight they seemed all but 
joined. They were locked in a deep kiss, and Bud's hands were intimately 
caressing Paula's flesh. The other couples were similarly intertwined. 

The strip-poker game, Rosalie saw clearly, had been just a means of getting 
everyone's clothes off in a spicy and yet somehow-innocent way. This was the 
real purpose of the party, though. A cozy little game of switching mates. 

She clung to Longstreet, feeling the rigidness of his cock rubbing against 
her thighs. 

"Does this sort of thing happen often here?" Rosalie asked. 

"What sort of thing?" 

"Strip-poker games. And what comes after." 

"Oh, yes. It's all the rage. Didn't Bud tell you?" 

"Just in passing." 

"It's the big fad here this season. Particularly among the married people. 
The floaters are up to this sort of stuff all the time, so it's no novelty 
for them. But us old, settled folk enjoy something a little different now 
and then. Maybe you haven't been married long enough to see the need for 
some variety in your sex life." 

"I guess not," Rosalie said acidly. 

Longstreet didn't seem to notice the sarcastic inflection. "Frankly, we 
weren't sure you'd want to join the fun. But I'm glad you decided to. It's 
always good to have new faces in the party." 

"New faces?" 

"You know what I mean," Longstreet laughed. 

"Did Bud come to these shindigs often, before he married me?" Rosalie wanted 
to know. 

"Oh-he was around. I don't know if I ought to talk much about-" 

"It's no secret to me that Bud had a sex life before he married me." 

"Well, he used to come, all right. He'd bring along whatever girl he was 
seeing. But since all the rest of us were married, it wasn't really an even 
swap. A wife for a date, you see. Not quite the same thing. But now that 
Bud's a married man, why, everything's even-steven." 

"How nice," Rosalie said. 

The record came to its end. Burkhart strode over and changed it. 

The next one began with a wild frug. It was a startling experience to do a 
frug in the nude. Four couples moving rapidly on the dance floor. Breasts 
bouncing crazily, bare buttocks jiggling, bodies colliding. Rosalie caught 
sight of Joy Robbins undulating hectically, snapping her fingers flamenco 
style, her big breasts bouncing and quivering like huge balls of loose 
jelly. The room took on a frenzied, feverish atmosphere. Rosalie felt her 
own inhibitions giving way completely in a pagan fervor of the dance. 
Rivulets of sweat rolled down her breasts and belly. Her body began to gleam 
in the dimness. 

The hectic frenzy gave way to slower music again. Rosalie paused to catch 
her breath and down another drink. She became aware that there were only 
three couples in the room, that Robbins and Bets Long-street had slipped 
out. Probably into the Burkhart's bedroom for a quickie. She went on dancing 
with Longstreet. 

This isn't so wicked, she thought. Just dancing in the nude. Wouldn't go 
over so well at a YWCA social, but as long as Longstreet doesn't make any 
serious passes, I won't object. And as long as Bud doesn't duck out of the 
room with that Burkhart bitch- 

But she knew it was naive to expect everything to remain so innocent. In the 
moment between one fox-trot and the next, she saw Bud and Paula move-still 
embracing-through the door and into the trailer's kitchen. 

The door closed behind them. 

Bud and Paula in the kitchen, Nick and Bets in the bedroom-if this wasn't a 
downright orgy, she thought, then nothing was. 

Her first, angry impulse was to head into the kitchen after her husband, who 
was probably down on the floor putting it into a hot, spread-legged Paula 
right then. But she didn't want to stir up a scene. After all, she had 
consented to go there tonight, and she had agreed to stay after the card 
game, also. It wasn't as though she had been drugged or hypnotized into 
this. She had gone into it all with her eyes open-and half excited by the 
idea of such a daring evening. 

Let's face it, she told herself. You knew that all this was coming. Don't be 
a hypocrite now and act amazed that Bud's in the kitchen on top of Paula. 

The right-hand door, the one that led to the bedroom, opened. Bets and Nick 
emerged, both looking like cats who had devoured the canary. It required 
only a glance at Nick's body to see that they had indeed made love most 
satisfactorily in there. 

Rosalie nodded eagerly toward the bedroom door. "Come on," she said to 
Longstreet. 

"In there?" 

"Don't you want to?" 

Longstreet grinned in amiable confusion. "I thought you were still 
struggling with your inhibitions." 

"Well, I'm not. I want to go where we can have some privacy, Lew." 

He didn't need any further coaxing. They danced right through the open door 
and into the narrow corridor, past the tightly shut door of the children's 
bedroom, and into the small, cramped, and untidy room where Jim and Paul 
Burkhart slept. Longstreet pushed the door closed behind them. 

Eagerly, Rosalie dragged him down to the bed. She was not motivated by real 
sexual desire, but rather by a burning anger with Bud, a furious urge to 
match him, infidelity for infidelity, sin for sin, as though that could in 
some way restore a shred of purity to their weird marriage. She knew that it 
was insane to think she could accomplish anything this way, but she was 
driven steadily onward by an inner fury. 

Longstreet seemed to be taken aback by the intensity of her willingness. He 
had appeared to expect resistance, coyness needing seduction. Instead he was 
being swept off his feet by her. 

They embraced on the bed. His hands touched her thighs, making the soft 
flesh tingle. Then they moved up her body to her breasts, and he held the 
heavy mounds of firm flesh for a moment, until she started to pant. 

"Now, Lew. I'm ready--right now-" 

The preliminaries had made her impatient. She opened to him, and his body 
was against hers, entering her, and she shut her eyes tight as he went into 
her, feeling the pinwheeling excitement in her breasts and thighs and loins 
and buttocks, and he grasped her tightly and she let out a gasp as their 
joined bodies began to move, and she felt the thrills cascading through her 
body, delight upon delight. She dug her fingers into his back and he pressed 
down on her, flattening her deliciously, and his hands were squeezing her 
hard-tipped breasts, and she cried out in pleasure as he moved and moved 
again above her- 

And the cold, clear thought cut through her brain: 

What on earth am I doing? 

I must be out of my mind! Here I am boffing a man I didn't even know this 
afternoon- 

And this afternoon I balled Frank Satterfield-! 

Suddenly she was a million miles away from the bed of lust on which she lay 
with Lew Longstreet. He continued to move above her, but Rosalie felt no 
further sensations of pleasure, no real awareness of shared ecstasy. It was 
as though she were standing outside her body, looking down on it. 

When you decided to become a sinner, girlie you really did it up brown, she 
thought. And it's Bud's fault, is it, or is it really your own? Are you 
getting even with him-or is all this sexing just a convenient way to make up 
for all those wasted years of sleeping alone? 

"Let go of me," she said abruptly. 

"What's that?" 

"Get off me. I've had enough." 

Incredulously, Longstreet said, "Just another couple of seconds, Rosalie. 
I'm just about'-ready-" 

"I don't want any more." 

"Just another second--" he pleaded. He clung to her, going deep, and she 
heard him gasp and begin to move with eager thrusts, and his breath came in 
harsh little bursts and he plunged up and down and she felt him quiver and 
shudder as the culmination came upon him. She lay back, unmoving, letting 
him have his little moment of pleasure-it really wasn't fair to punish him 
for her weakness-but taking no part in the climax herself. 

The moment it had ended for him, Rosalie rolled over, breaking the contact 
between their bodies. 

"That wasn't nice," he said. 

"This was all a mistake, a tremendous mistake. I should never have come in 
here with you. I should never have come to this party." 

I should never have married Bud, she thought. 

Longstreet sat up, tried to put his arms around her and embrace her. She 
shook him off. 

"I'm sorry, Lew. Sorry I got that way-right in the middle of everything. But 
I'm disgusted. Disgusted with myself. It's no fault of yours, really. But 
just let me out of here." 

"Don't go, Rosalie." 

She ignored him. She rose from the bed, threw open the door, padded down the 
hallway to the party room. She was beginning to sob by the time she reached 
it. 

There were four people still dancing-Bets and Nick, Bud and Paula. Rosalie 
burst in, a wild, nude figure, almost hysterical. The dancing stopped. 
Long-street entered behind her, called out to her. 

She ran to the card table, gathered up the little bundle of her clothing. 

Bud came over. "What's the matter, Rosalie? Did he hurt you?" 

"No. Nothing he did." 

"Then what-" 

"Leave me alone!" she cried. "All of you! Just leave me alone!" 

She tucked the bundle of clothes under her arm and dashed wildly out into 
the night. 

The fact that she was still nude hardly registered on her, even though a 
bright moon illuminated the trailer camp, even though there were people 
sitting in front of the nearby trailers who stated in amazement and 
surprised delight as the naked girl made the fifteen-foot dash from the 
Burkhart trailer to her own. Rosalie pushed the unlocked door open and burst 
in. 

Entering her bedroom, she hurled her clothing down on a chair and fell onto 
the bed. She buried her face in her pillow, biting it to keep back the 
tears. For long moments, she lay there, quivering soundlessly. 

What's happening to me, she asked herself? 

What am I turning into? 

What kind of marriage is this going to be? 

She shivered in fright and confusion. Soothing voices inside her skull told 
her not to carry on this way, to be modern and sophisticated and to accept 
the wild, trailer-camp life of casual sin and adultery. After all, it was 
the kind of life Bud wanted. And she loved Bud. 

You do love him, don't you?" 

Rosalie pondered the question for a moment. What was love, anyway? She liked 
to go to bed with Bud, she responded physically to his caresses, but that 
didn't mean anything. She had responded to Frank Satterfield's caresses, and 
she certainly didn't love Frank Satterfield. Why, she had even been 
responding to Lew Longstreet until that sudden freeze hit her. 

Love had to be more than just sex compatibility, she decided. It was-well, 
she felt good when Bud was around. She wanted to be near him, to make him 
comfortable, to do little things for him. To be his wife. 

It was only when she stopped to think, to look at things objectively, that 
Rosalie realized that Bud was a weak, pleasure-ridden man. He seemed so 
strong, so wonderful. But yet she knew the inner Bud, now, the Bud who found 
every woman irresistible. And despite that, she could not bring herself to 
leave him. She knew that. She would stay with him as long as there was even 
a tissue of hope that she might some day have exclusive possession of him. 

The trailer door opened. 

"Don't come in here!" she called. 

"It's only me, Bud," came the calm, steady voice. 

Rosalie huddled against the pillow, conscious of her nakedness now as she 
had not been at the party. Bud entered the room. She glanced up at him. He 
was fully dressed, and his face was grave. She put her head into the pillow 
again and began to shake with repressed sobs. 

"Why did you run out like that?" Bud asked her quietly. 

"I don't want to talk." 

He sat down on the edge of the bed, putting one big hand on her shoulder. 
She curled up into a fetal ball, trying to hide her nakedness from him. He 
stroked her shoulder for a moment, then drew his hand down her side, over 
her naked hip, her bare flank. She pulled away from him. 

"What's the matter, baby?" he murmured. 

"You promised me-it wouldn't be an orgy-" 

"What does it matter? You were having a good time. So was I. And we have to 
be adults about this sex thing. We don't need to hide our bodies from the 
world like a bunch of frightened old maids. We-" 

"Don't talk this way," Rosalie muttered. "Husband and wife ought to make 
love with each other. Not with everyone else around the lot." 

"I thought you were able to handle that kind of fun," Bud said. "Maybe I was 
wrong. Maybe I rushed you too soon. I keep forgetting you're new to all 
this." 

"So you want me to make it with other men? You enjoy it when I boff with Lew 
Longstreet? Does it give you some kind of thrill to pass me around?" 

"Baby, we'll have to have a long talk about this-this business of morality. 
Some other time. When you're in a calmer mood." 

"Aren't you glad I was a virgin when you married me?" she asked. 

"Yes, I was glad. But only because I was the first. I never expected to go 
on being the only one." 

"Bud, I'm all mixed up. Marriage means Such different things to each of us." 

His hand rested lightly on the firm plumpness of her bare buttocks. He 
patted her gently. "Let's go to sleep, Rosalie. We'll have a long talk about 
this later on." 

 CHAPTER NINE 

So he had sidestepped the whole issue, Rosalie thought as she stretched out 
and tried to go to sleep. He had simply promised to talk about it some other 
time. She felt cold fear growing within her as she thought back over this 
long, hectic, eventful day and saw it as the forerunner of a wild career of 
sin that was light-years removed from anything she had thought of as 
marriage. 

After a long while, she slept. The alarm crashed into her slumbers like a 
battering ram. Rosalie groggily awoke, feeling hung over and much more tired 
than she had been when she had gone to bed. She struggled out of bed and 
into the bathroom to wash away the sleepiness with cold water. 

Bud was dressing when she emerged. He greeted her with a simile. She nodded 
in response and moved on into the kitchen to get his breakfast started. 
There was the patter of rain on the trailer's roof. Rosalie looked out the 
kitchen window. It was a dark, gray, muggy morning. 

They said little to each other at breakfast. It was as though the events of 
the night before had lowered a veil between them, blocking off 
communication. An uncomfortable half-hour passed before Bud finally drank 
his coffee and left the trailer, dashing through the rain to the parking 
lot. Pensively, Rosalie peered out, watching him hop into the car and drive 
off to work. 

She was in a gloomy, depressed mood as she cleaned up the breakfast dishes. 
Tonight they were supposed to go into the city, to visit her parents. It 
would be the first trip back home since the wedding. Her parents would be 
full of curiosity, full of questions about trailer-camp life, about the 
marriage, about Bud. 

She could just picture the conversation, too. 

"It's great living in a trailer camp," she could say. "We have wild parties 
every night. We play strip poker and a lot of other interesting games." 

And she could tell them: 

"Marriage is wonderful, folks! I really enjoy sex. I enjoy it so much that 
I've balled two men already aside from my husband. In only ten days too!" 

And she could say: 

"Bud's a great guy. So kind, so understanding. And so virile. Is he ever 
virile! Why, he laid the woman next door only three or four days after we 
got married. And then he made a blonde at a party on Saturday night, and 
then last night at the strip poker game he-" 

It would be quite a revelation to them, Rosalie thought. Her parents-good, 
honest, middle-class people that they were, would both have apoplectic 
strokes on the spot. They believed that a girl should sleep with one man and 
only one man in her whole life. And here she had exceeded that number 
already by two, in the space of less than two weeks. The marriage was off to 
a good start. At this rate she'd be the most experienced girl in New Jersey 
before her first anniversary. 

The housework served to keep her mind off the strange and immoral 
arrangement that her marriage had turned into. There was laundry to take 
over to the administration building, where a row of washing machines had 
been installed, and then there was wash to hang out afterward. At the 
washing machines, Rosalie ran into Bets Longstreet, but they merely smiled 
at each other in an abashed sort of way, as though the wild episode of the 
night before had been eclipsed by these housewifely responsibilities. 

After the wash, there was shopping to do. A bed to make. Some mending. Just 
little things, but they kept her busy, kept her mind away from dark 
brooding. But by two in the afternoon, Rosalie had grown weary of the 
household chores. She had done everything that needed to be done. The other 
things, like vacuuming the drapes and scouring the sink, could wait till 
tomorrow. Or the day after. 

What now? 

She sank down in a chair. The rain had stopped in midmorning, but the 
depressing, gray overcast remained. She wondered how she would use up the 
three hours until Bud came home. She could always cook something elaborate 
again, she thought. Bake a cake. 

But her heart wasn't in it. She was too confused, too overwhelmed by this 
complete breakdown in her moral standards. Again and again Rosalie relived 
the events of the day before, retracing the moments when she had given 
herself to Frank Satterfield, the hour of the poker game, the nasty little 
interlude in bed with Lew Longstreet. It had been a headlong rush into sin. 

Why, she wondered? Why did I do it? 

To get even with Bud? Yes, that was part of it. But that was a silly, 
childish reason. 

I did it because I wanted to. Because I've been a good girl long enough. 

That was more honest, Rosalie realized. Her wedding night had been the night 
of transition for her. It had ended her long years of repression and 
inhibition. You can only lose your virginity once. After that, it's just a 
series of repeated sexual experiences, some of them pleasurable, some not. 
So-once Bud had initiated her-she had begun to give vent to all the 
forbidden desires that had been throttled up so long. She wasn't merely 
casting aside her inhibitions, she was bludgeoning them to death. Bud had 
helped, by giving her the cue for infidelity. She knew she proably would not 
have succumbed to her desires if Bud hadn't set a bad example first- 

But he had. 

And she had cut loose. 

Now what? she wondered. Where to next? 

She wandered to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a drink, and stood by 
the window looking out at the muddy paths up and down the lanes of the 
trailer camp. Rosalie could see the Satterfield trailer from there. The 
lights were on inside. She knew she could wander over and visit for a while. 
And she knew, too, what that would automatically lead to, if Frank 
Satterfield happened to be home alone. 

Rosalie shook her head. She wasn't going to go out of her way to see 
Satterfield. There was such a thing as carrying this to an extreme. 

She sipped her drink. 

The telephone rang. 

Four rings had sounded before Rosalie picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she 
said dispiritedly. 

The warm contralto of Bonnie Campbell greeted her. "Hi, Rosalie. Thought I'd 
call up and find out what you were doing on this lousy day." 

"I'm moping, mostly. And doing housework. I'm in a blue mood." 

"So am I. That's why I called. I can't get a bit of work done," Bonnie said. 
"I thought you might like to come over for a drink." 

"I've been having a drink here." 

"Alone? Shame on you!" 

"I just had one," Rosalie said. 

"Well, look, come on over anyway. You can listen to a couple of records, and 
we can cheer each other up. If I sit here alone another five minutes, T'll 
so clear off my rocker, Rosalie. And your husband won't be home for hours 
yet. How about it?" 

Rosalie smiled faintly. "Okay. I was wondering what to do with myself all 
afternoon, anyway. I'll be right over, Bonnie." 

"Good. What were you drinking?" 

"Bourbon on the rocks." 

"Right-o. I'll have a fresh one ready for you when you get here." 

Rosalie put down the phone. She felt better already, now that she knew she 
would have someone to talk to, someone to spend the afternoon with. Bonnie 
was such a cheerful person. And she was interesting and intelligent, too. It 
was a perfect way to use up a few hours of this bleak day. 

She slipped on a light jacket and crossed the camp, over to Lane Two. 
Bonnie's trailer was small but brightly colored on the outside, brightly lit 
within. She shared it with a girl named Helena who earned her living drawing 
illustrations for the children's books that Bonnie wrote. 

Rosalie stepped inside. Bonnie came to the door wearing only a loosely 
belted housecoat. Bonnie was a tall girl in her late twenties, extremely 
pretty, with big eyes and gleaming, white teeth. She held a glass in her 
hand, and extended it toward Rosalie. 

"You really meant it when you said you'd have one ready!" Rosalie exclaimed. 

"I always say what I mean. Come on in and make yourself comfortable. Nasty 
day, isn't it?" 

"Miserable. Where's Helena?" 

"New York. Went to the Museum of Modern Art for the Picasso show. The girl 
can't get enough of Picasso." Bonnie stretched out in a comfortable longue 
chair, and with a sweeping gesture, indicated that Rosalie should take the 
one next to it. A record was playing in the background, something with 
harpsichords in it. 

Rosalie kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs underneath her. "What's the 
music?" 

Vivaldi. You like it?" 

"It's certainly lively. Are those oboes?" 

"And flutes," Bonnie said. She yawned and stretched. The front of her gown 
fell open, exposing small, very white, rounded breasts tipped with little, 
pink nipples. She closed it up again with a negligent gesture. "God, what a 
dull day this has been!You know how much I've written today? Take a guess!" 

"Ten pages?" 

"Hah! Three hundred words! And I started right after breakfast. Three 
hundred! Of course, that doesn't count what I threw away. I've thrown away 
two or three thousand today. Nothing will come out the way I want it to." 

"It must be awfully hard, writing for young children," Rosalie said. "You 
have all those vocabulary problems to worry about." 

"Oh, you get the swing of that quickly enough," Bonnie said. "But some days 
you sit at the typewriter and everything that comes out looks so damned 
stilted and awkward and false. So you throw it away. And other days it flows 
like magic. I once wrote a thirty-thousand word book in six days, do you 
know that? 

And here I've been working on this one for almost a month, and I don't even 
have three chapters finished." Bonnie sloshed ice cubes morosely around in 
her drink. "I'm supposed to turn it in by the first of next month. I'll 
never make it." 

"What's it about?" 

Bonnie shrugged. "Moon people. Little, furry, moon people with pink noses. I 
thought it was a great idea when I began it. So did my editor. So did 
Helena. She did some wonderful sketches for it. But it's all going sour, 
now. I don't believe a word of what I'm writing. And if I don't believe it, 
how can I expect the kids to?" Lazily, Bonnie drew one knee up. The gown 
slipped off, revealing the fine contours of her bare leg and thigh, almost 
to her loins. She frowned at the leg for a moment, then crossed it over the 
other one. She said suddenly, "Did you have a good time at the poker party 
last night?" 

"What-? How did you know?" 

"I spent the morning on the phone when I saw I wasn't getting any work done. 
I talked to someone who talked to Bets Longstreet." 

Color rose to Rosalie's cheeks. "News gets around pretty fast here, doesn't 
it?" 

"It's kind of a tight little society. So you played strip poker?" 

"Yes." 

"Willingly?" 

"Bud wanted me to play. He-insisted." 

"I imagined it was something like that." Rosalie looked at the other girl. 
"Bonnie, I'm scared. Scared stiff." 

"What of?" 

"Myself. Bud. This whole place. Bonnie, listen to me. You remember at the 
party, Saturday night? When I was afraid Bud had gone off with that blonde 
girl? You told me no, he hadn't-but you were only trying to calm me down, 
weren't you? Because I happen to know that he did go off with her." 

"You know that, eh?" 

Rosalie nodded. 

With a shrug, Bonnie said, "You poor kid. You're just finding out what a 
heel you married." 

"He seemed so great." 

"Bud? Yeah, he's a prince. But you should have found out his reputation 
first." 

"He never touched me before we were married. He was a complete gentleman. 
How was I to know he was a woman-chaser? And last night, forcing me to go to 
that poker game, making me strip with all the rest-" Rosalie didn't want to 
tell Bonnie about the other details, her interlude with Frank Satterfield, 
her session with Lew Longstreet. A sudden idea struck her. "Bonnie?" 

"Mmm?" 

"I know Bud has been going after every girl in the whole camp. And you're 
one of the prettiest. Has he-has he ever made a pass at you?" 

Bonnie laughed uproariously. "At me? No, he keeps his distance. I made that 
quite clear to him the first time we met." 

"Why is it so funny?" 

"Oh, I don't know. It just seems that way. Have another drink?" 

"I'm-getting a little stewed already." 

"Don't worry. I won't let you pass out." Bonnie smiled warmly. "I'll take 
care of you, Rosalie. Even if that stinker of a husband won't." 

"It's so good to have someone like you in the camp. With all those other 
people-how could I ever go to Paula Burkhart to spend a lonely afternoon?" 

Bonnie laughed as she filled Rosalie's glass again. Rosalie began to relax. 
The record came to its end, and Bonnie put on a new one, and they listened 
to the music, talking above it occasionally. Rosalie decided that Bonnie was 
one of the finest people she had ever met. So warm-so sympathetic- 

"You've never been married, have you?" Rosalie asked. 

"Me? Never. And I never will be." 

"I'm surprised. Someone with as much warmth as you-to live a single life. 
And especially since you seem to like children so much-" 

"I like children, yes," Bonnie said. "But I don't like the way children are 
made. And I don't like the male sex. Too many of them are like Bud-sweet 
guys until you get to know them. I'd rather be a bachelor girl." 

"Isn't it a lonely life, though? Even when you have a roommate?" 

"Oh, it has its compensations," Bonnie said. "I'm pretty happy." 

"I'm not. I'm all tight and tense inside," said Rosalie. "Full of confusion. 
Not knowing which way to turn." 

"That's what marriage does to you." Bonnie looked closely at Rosalie. "I've 
got just the thing for you, if you say you feel tight and tense. A massage. 
I'm an expert masseuse, you know. I can have you feeling completely relaxed 
in a jiffy." 

"Oh, I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble-" 

"No trouble at all," Bonnie insisted. 

She led Rosalie into the bedroom. Rosalie removed her blouse and slacks, 
and, wearing bra and panties, lay down on the bed. The light overhead was 
warm. She closed her eyes. 

"Just relax now," Bonnie said. 

Her fingers rippled over Rosalie's back, kneading the flesh, soothing it. 
Then they moved lower, to the taut flesh of her buttocks. Rosalie breathed 
slowly, relaxedly. She did not object when Bonnie unhooked her brassiere and 
laid the strips to the sides so that she could get at all of her skin. And 
then, a few moments later, Bonnie was rolling Rosalie's panties down over 
her hips. The older girl's fingers moved skillfully all up and down 
Rosalie's back, buttocks, and thighs, each kind of massage bringing new 
comfort and pleasure, "Turn over," Bonnie said. 

Obediently, Rosalie turned. Bonnie's hands swept caressingly from Rosalie's 
breasts to her waist and then to her thighs. Drowsiness and content stole 
over Rosalie as the manipulations became more and more intimate. She knew 
that this was wrong, that she should not let another woman handle her this 
way. But it was so good, so relaxing, so pleasing.... 

"You're beautiful," Bonnie murmured. "So very beautiful with those glorious 
breasts of yours, those soft thighs-" 

"We shouldn't be doing this," Rosalie said vaguely. 

"Why not? We can make each other happy. And none of the misery of being with 
men. None of their selfishness. Just the two of us, two friends giving 
pleasure to one another, dear-" 

Then Rosalie knew why Bonnie had laughed at the thought of being approached 
by Bud. A lot of things fell into place, suddenly. Bonnie was a Lesbian, 
that was it! She had no use for men. She was perverted. 

Should I let her do this?-Rosalie wondered. And the answer came: Why not? 
Her hands feel so good.... 

"Relax," Bonnie said. 

She threw off her robe. She was naked underneath, her body lean and 
muscular, with small, high breasts and narrow hips. Her hand was cupping 
Rosalie's breasts. She lay on her side, facing Bonnie, and the other girl 
had her hand on both of Rosalie's breasts, playing with the nipples, 
squeezing the heavy globes with all five fingers. One of Bonnie's knees 
gently pushed its way between Rosalie's thighs. Rosalie found it was 
pleasant to have the leg between hers. She began to move rhythmically, 
deriving delight from each rubbing motion of her cunt over Bonnie's leg. 

Then Bonnie released Rosalie's breasts and began to move her hands over 
every part of Rosalie's body. Drowsy, half drunk, Rosalie only smiled. At 
the moment, she saw nothing unnatural about two women making love to each 
other. She entered into the spirit of it, her lips gently caressing Bonnie's 
stiff nipples, and her hands wandered toward the other girl's flat, muscular 
buttocks. She wriggled closer to Bonnie, and the two girls embraced, and 
Rosalie could feet the jutting little bones of Bonnie's hips pressing into 
the softness of her own thighs. 

Rosalie began to pant as Bonnie's hands touched the secret places of her 
body, stimulating them, heating them, exciting them. She reached out for 
Bonnie, wanting to do the same to her. 

"Kiss me," Rosalie muttered harshly. "Kiss me there!" 

Bonnie kissed her. "Now you kiss me," she whispered. 

Rosalie did. 

"Again," Bonnie said. "Oh, again, again!" 

And then neither of them could control themselves any longer, and they came 
together in a tight embrace. Rosalie felt her heart pound as though it would 
rip out of her chest. Every muscle contracted, and she gasped harshly for 
breath and cried out, "Oh-oh-oh!" as their lovemaking became more intense, 
and she felt shaft after shaft of ecstasy shudder through her, even more 
powerful than when she had been doing it with Bud-for now there was no fear 
at all, no pain, just sheer delight. 

Bonnie covered her body with a million, tiny kisses, and stroked the tender, 
inner flesh of Rosalie's thighs, parting her legs, kissing her in the hot 
place between them, and Bonnie toyed with the tenderness of her buttocks and 
they moved faster and faster, the embrace growing more and more intense 
until Rosalie thought she would explode with sheer delight. The explosion 
came. 

Rosalie gasped for air and her body was drenched with sweat, and she lay 
quivering in Bonnie's arms while the thunder of her heart slowly subsided. 

"There," Bonnie whispered. "I've been waiting for that moment ever since I 
set my eyes on you. Did you enjoy it?" 

"I-yes. Yes, I enjoyed it." 

"I'm so glad, darling. So glad I don't know how to tell you. I've never been 
so happy before." 

Rosalie lay quietly with Bonnie's arms around her. She began to sober 
quickly. She thought back over the past fifteen minutes, reliving them. 

Bonnie's hands affectionately stroked her breasts. She bent to kiss 
Rosalie's nipples, which still were stiff. Rosalie opened her eyes and 
stared at the wall. After a moment she began to cry softly. 

Lesbian! 

 CHAPTER TEN 

Bonnie tried to be comforting. It only made things worse. Rosalie shook her 
off, rising from the bed and looking around for her clothing. 

"Darling, what's wrong?" Bonnie asked softly. Rosalie shook her head. "I-we 
shouldn't have done it-" 

"We both enjoyed it." 

"I know. But pleasure isn't all there is in life." Rosalie shrugged 
miserably. "Oh, Bonnie, I'm so mixed up! I'm such a dumb little kid! I don't 
know what I want." 

"You want happiness, security, warmth," Bonnie said. "We all do. And Bud 
isn't giving it to you, because he's a selfish, one-track kind of man." 

"He isn't. He means well, Bonnie. I don't think he can help what he does." 

"You're just saying that to rationalize away the fact that he's repeatedly 
been unfaithful to you." 

"No. He's a good man, Bonnie." 

"That's a contradiction in terms. Men are out for themselves alone. When 
they marry a woman, it isn't out of love, it's out of a need for sex, for 
building up their egos, for founding a dynasty". 

"I can't be that cynical," Rosalie said quietly. "I still have faith in 
Bud." 

"After all he's done to you?" 

"Yes." She snapped her bra into place and pulled on her panties. 

"How can you have faith in a man like that?" Bonnie asked sardonically. 
"Listen to me, Rosalie. Leave him and come away with me." Her small breasts 
were heaving with renewed excitement. "We'll pull out of here and go 
traveling, all around the country. Just the two of us." 

"There's Helena," Rosalie pointed out. 

Bonnie shrugged. "She's been thinking of splitting up with me. We haven't 
been-lovers-for a long time now. Just good friends. She wouldn't stand in 
our way. We'd have this trailer all to ourselves-and the entire continent to 
visit." 

"I couldn't, Bonnie." 

"We'd have a grand time. No quarrels, no unfaithfulness, no frustration. And 
no chasing after men. We can give each other pleasure. We just proved that. 
What do you say?" 

"No." Rosalie zipped up her slacks. "I'm just not the right type for it. I 
don't deny I enjoyed what we did. But I want children, a family, a-a 
husband. I'm not your sort of girl at all. I want to keep on being your 
friend, Bonnie. But not your lover." 

Heedless of the disappointment in the older girl's eyes, Rosalie walked 
toward the door. Bonnie slipped a robe around her shoulders and followed 
her. 

"Rosalie-" 

"No," Rosalie said firmly. She managed a smile. "Let's just stay good 
friends, Bonnie. Thanks for inviting me over. I was in such a lousy mood." 

She stepped out, into the fine drizzle that had started up, and walked back 
to her trailer. 

Her frame of mind was a mixed one. There was the recollection of undeniable 
pleasure, and the memory of an act that society condemned as perverse and 
immoral. Was it? Well, certainly it was from the point of view of a culture 
that regarded the production of children as the highest goal of sexual 
relations. But yet, there had been a tenderness in Bonnie's Lesbian embrace 
that Rosalie had never known from Bud or any other man, a tenderness beyond 
the male capacity. Rosalie shook her head. She was too much the product of 
her society to be able to accept Bonnie's invitation and become a 
full-fledged Lesbian. But, on the other hand, she could not condemn the girl 
out of hand for seeking pleasure and companionship in the only way that 
satisfied her. 

Rosalie busied herself with dinner. By the time Bud came home, a savory meal 
was being assembled. She greeted him warmly, and when he kissed her and told 
her how much he loved her, she heW him tight and tried to recapture the 
bliss of the days before their marriage had been transformed this way. 

Tell him you love him, she thought. And show him. And then maybe he'll give 
up this wild kind of life he's dragged us into. 

"What time are your folks expecting us?" 

"Around half-past eight or so." 

"They'll be glad to see us," he said. "And full of questions, I bet." 

"We won't have very good answers for them." 

"Just forget all the side events," Bud told her. "They don't count. What 
counts is you and me. And we love each other. Don't we?" 

"I love you, Bud." 

"And I love you. So it's mutual." 

Still, they spent an uncomfortable couple of hours at the home of Rosalie's 
parents. Her parents were both conventional and inhibited people, so the 
conversation never came around to anything like an intimate topic, but 
Rosalie was sure that her mother and father could tell at a glance that she 
and Bud had already been unfaithful to each other on a number of occasions. 
The closest thing to any direct questioning came when Rosalie and her mother 
were alone in the bedroom, Rosalie trying on some old clothes she had left 
behind. 

"So tell me," the older woman asked. "Is everything working out?" 

"It's fine, Mom." 

"I mean, in this crazy trailer camp. You like 

"It's all right. It's unusual." 

"I bet. But isn't it kind of--not private?" 

"We've all got shades on our windows, Mom." 

"And the neighbors? They are all right?" 

"Some very interesting people," Rosalie said uneasily. She wondered what lay 
behind her mother's line of questioning. Was it mere curiosity-or did she 
smell something fishy? Since her mother would never come out and ask a 
direct question, there was no way of telling. 

Her mother said, "I hear a lot of bad things about these trailer camps. I 
ask questions. There are beatniks in some of them. And women who are just 
like trash. Is this how it is in your place?" 

Rosalie shrugged evasively. "I tell you the place is okay, Mom." 

"You want to be careful. Young people can get mixed up in so many things 
these days. Bud is a good boy, but he's different from us, I know that. And 
he might get tempted into who knows what? Watch yourself, Rosalie." 

On the way home that night, Rosalie told Bud about her mother's almost 
telepathic insight into the dangers of trailer-camp life. Bud chuckled. 

"So my mother-in-law's got more sense than I gave her credit for!" 

"Bud, does she just suspect, or does she know?" 

"Know what?" 

"That-that things like the strip-poker game go on." 

"Oh, she's just poking in the dark. Maybe she read a magazine article about 
trailer camps at the beauty parlor. She can't possibly know what we in 
particular have been up to." 

Rosalie realized that Bud was right. But, still, it would be awkward if she 
ever left Bud and had to tell her mother why. The clucking of tongues and 
uttering of I-told-you-sos would be unendurable. 

"Bud-" 

"What is it, sweet?" 

"I was thinking-maybe we could calm down a little." 

"In what way?" 

"In the way we've been living at the camp. I'm frightened, Bud. Things like 
that strip-poker game-" 

"You still haven't gotten over it, have you?" 

"We've only been married a couple of weeks, Bud. That's too soon for us to 
be getting into seamy things like that, I think." 

"You seemed to be having a good time." 

She handed him half a dollar for the bridge toll. "I was. But that isn't the 
point. We start here, and where does it stop? Heroin parties? Perversions? 
Bud, I don't want to turn into somebody out of a case history. I want to be 
your wife, not a member of a sin club." 

He chuckled in the darkness. "My beautiful little puritan." 

"So what if I am?" 

"It's unhealthy, that's what. You ought to glory in your body-not hide 
behind all kinds of inhibitions." 

"And if I got pregnant during some of the camp hi-jinks? I expect to get 
pregnant before much longer anyhow, you know. Will you accept the child as 
your own?" 

"Of course I will." 

"Even though there's a chance the father may be Lew Longstreet or somebody 
else?" 

"Honey, when I say I'm not old-fashioned I mean it. Any child you bear is 
our child." 

Rosalie sighed. "I wish you had made a pass at me before our marriage. I 
wish I had some warning that I was marrying a man from the avant-garde of 
sex. Can't we slow the pace down a little, Bud?" 

"All right," he said. "I'll call a moratorium on sinfulness. We'll live 
quiet, bourgeois lives for a while. Okay?" 

He had appeared to mean what he was saying. A couple of days passed, and 
though they had an active social life there was nothing illicit about 
anything they did. 

On Wednesday night, they went to a movie in a nearby town with Nick and Joy 
Robbins, and afterward stopped off on the road for some pizza and beer. It 
was a pleasant, foursome-style evening, and nobody once suggested a 
wife-swapping stunt or even referred to Monday's strip-poker game. 

The next night they stayed home and watched television. Ron and Lois Hunter 
dropped over for drinks. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. 

Friday night, the Longstreets had a small party. The Robbinses were there, 
and Ted Martin with Ellen Washburn, and some other people Rosalie did not 
know very well. Aside from a session of dirty jokes, the party had no 
off-color aspects whatever, and Bud hardly looked at any of the other women, 
let alone went off with them. 

Rosalie began to hope that Bud had wrung most of the wildness out of his 
system. He was beginning to settle down a little, she thought. Their life 
was becoming more conventional, and thus more stable. When Saturday night 
came, and the Satterfields had a party, and Bud remained at her side almost 
the entire evening despite the temptation of a couple of breasty new camp 
residents, Rosalie began to feel that the millennium had come, indeed. There 
was a new girl in camp, a tall brunette with a stunning figure, who was 
traveling around the country by herself. She came to the party in a black 
dress whose scoop front revealed her big breasts practically down to the 
nipples, and she was quite naturally the object of a great deal of attention 
from every man present. But Bud merely smiled a polite hello at her, and 
otherwise was the model of a faithful husband in every respect. 

Rosalie was proud of him. That night, after the party, she made love to him 
with all the ardor at her command. Her taut, nude body opened and engulfed 
him. Far into the night, they vented their passions on one another, and when 
Rosalie finally sank drowsily into sleep, she told herself that she had 
never been so happy. 

It didn't last long. 

Monday afternoon, when she took her laundry over to the washing machine 
room, she met Rhona Macklin, the busty, blonde girl who had been Bud's 
paramour at the first Satterfield party. The two women smiled at each other 
rather coolly. 

Rhona said, "How's it going?" 

"Wonderfully well, thanks." 

"With you and Bud, I mean." 

"Hardly a bit of trouble since that day I came to see you," Rosalie said. 

"Glad to hear that." But something in Rhona's tone seemed to strike a false 
note. 

Rosalie said, "Why'd you say it that way?" 

"What way?" 

"Sort of-half-heartedly." 

Rhona frowned. "I didn't, did I? I mean, you said you and your husband were 
hitting it off well, and I said I was glad to hear it. Where's the harm?" 

Rosalie reddened. "What are you keeping from me?" 

"Nothing, Rosalie! I mean it!" 

"Do you?" 

Rhona sighed. "I hate to see you get hurt, Rosalie." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Listen," Rhona whispered, looking around to make sure no other women were 
in the room. "You really think Bud's been behaving himself, don't you?" 

"Why-yes." 

"Well, he has-during the evenings. But I happen to know he's got a little 
deal working for him during his lunch hour." 

Rosalie moistened her lips, and felt behind her for the bench. She sat down, 
trembling. "What-what kind of little deal?" she asked hoarsely. 

"With Peggy Satterfield. She drives down to the missile base every day 
around noon. There's a tool-shed where they can grab a quick one together. 
It's been going on for four or five days." 

"No," Rosalie said. "It can't be true." 

"You take my advice, kid, and dump that guy when you've got the chance. He's 
rotten through and through." 

"But everything was so swell all week-" 

"Sure," Rhona said brutally. "But he could afford to be lovey-dovey in the 
evenings. He was getting what he wanted on company time." 

"How did you find this out?" Rosalie demanded. 

"Through channels." 

"I want to know!" 

"Well," Rhona said, "you know that Nick Robbins works at the same place your 
husband does." 

"I know that." 

"Okay. It happens that Ted Martin-that's my roommate, Ellen's, fellow-is 
also interested in Joy Robbins, Nick's wife. You following this?" 

"Yes." 

"Ellen's got her period right now. So Ted went after Joy. He's been making 
it with her for a couple of days. Last night he asked her about his old 
buddy Bud, and whether Bud had ever made out with her. She said yes, and 
then the conversation came around to Peggy Satterfield, and Joy said that 
Nick had told her that Peggy Satterfield goes down to the missile base every 
day and goes to a tool-shed with Bud. 

Complicated, huh? Well, Ted passed this along to Ellen last night, and Ellen 
told me, and I was wondering whether I ought to tell you. It's really none 
of my business. I already told you what I think you ought to do about that 
guy." 

"So Nick told Joy and Joy told Ted and Ted told Ellen and Ellen told you," 
Rosalie repeated drearily. "And finally I get the news." 

"Honey, I told it to you for your own good." 

Rosalie nodded. "I know. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I appreciate that." 

She gathered her laundry together, pulling it out of the machine, stuffing 
it into the laundry basket. Walking as though in a daze, she left the 
laundry room. 

So it was all phony, then, she thought. That warm sense of security and 
comfort had been built on foundations of sand. No wonder Bud had been such a 
perfect gentleman in the evenings. He was getting what he wanted during the 
day, that was all. He was being less blatant about his sex needs, but he was 
taking what he wanted all the same. 

Entering her trailer, Rosalie dropped the wash basket on the bathroom floor 
and wandered into the bedroom. She stared at the mirror. A stranger's face 
looked back at her, gaunt, haggard, bewildered. 

Everything had seemed to be going along so smoothly, she thought dismally. 
And now, within five minutes, it was all fouled up again. 

Bud. 

Peggy Satterfield. 

And after Peggy, Paula. After Paula, Joy. Then Ellen Washburn, maybe. Or 
Rhona again. An endless series of women to supplement the love he got in the 
marriage bed. And yet he remained so loving, so warm, so generous, so kind. 

How could a man be so cynical, she wondered? 

How could he carry on a double life this way? 

Somehow this was the worst blow of all. After all his promises, after this 
quiet week they had spent, after all the kisses and smiles and caresses-to 
find out that he was still unfaithful to her- 

She wondered what to do. Divorce him? Or just leave the trailer camp and 
hope that he would follow after, a reformed character? 

Maybe a long talk with him- 

No. This wasn't a matter for logic and reason. The man was sick, Rosalie 
told herself. He needed a doctor. He couldn't help what he did. Obviously. 
He must be a compulsive, sex-mad satyr. Else why bother getting married? 
Why, unless he hoped to free himself from the compulsion that drove him? And 
he was not succeeding. 

She looked at her thin, pale wrists. A slash of a razor across those blue 
veins just beneath the translucent skin-that would end all this torment. How 
long would it take, she wondered, for her life to bubble out? And would it 
hurt? She didn't think it would, not after the initial pain of cutting the 
wrists. After that it would be just a slow, steady flow of blood, while she 
got weaker and weaker, until sleep came, and no awakening. 

Rosalie began to tremble. She wandered indecisively up and down the length 
of the trailer. Its walls seemed to be closing in on her. And wherever she 
turned, she could see Bud, smiling at her, whispering words of love and 
endearment, assuring her that she was the only woman in his life. 

She pushed the idea of suicide out of her mind. Things weren't that bad, 
yet. 

But how to still the misery in her heart. 

There was always the liquor cabinet. She opened it, poured herself a drink. 
It warmed her, made her feel momentarily better. But she knew it was only a 
temporary remedy. No matter how she drank, there would still be the moment 
of reckoning when the alcohol wore off. 

She sat quietly for a long while, more than an hour, nursing her one drink 
and sipping it in minute mouthfuls to delay the moment when she would have 
to refill the glass. There was work to do, she reminded herself. Washed 
laundry to hang up to dry. But she had no desire to do the work, now. No 
strength of purpose. 

She stared at the phone. All she had to do was pick it up, dial someone in 
the camp, someone no more than a couple of hundred yards away. Call up Frank 
Satterfield, say, and tell him that she was lonely and needed consoling. Or 
Bonnie Campbell. There were plenty of people nearby who would be glad to 
console her. But Rosalie kept away from the phone. 

Bleakly, she thought over the possibilities of escape from her intolerable 
situation. Suicide. Drinking. 

Adultery. 

Lesbianism. Divorce. 

A fine bunch of possibilities, she thought bitterly. The first four seemed 
worthless except as desperation moves. And divorce? 

Giving up Bud? 

She realized that she couldn't. Not even after all she knew about him. He 
was still important to her. He was still the first man she had really loved. 
When Rosalie closed her eyes, she could feel his big, strong hands on her 
breasts, could taste the taste of him against her lips, could imagine her 
body tight against his, his weight pressing down on her, his hands roaming 
her body, now at her breasts, now under her buttocks as he went into her and 
brought her to an unimaginable pitch of physical bliss- 

She didn't want to divorce him. But she knew she was losing him anyway. The 
marriage couldn't go on this way. It was a farce, a hollow mockery. 

With no way out. 

 CHAPTER ELEVEN 

She let the minutes and the hours of the afternoon roll past. And then it 
was four o'clock, and she was aware that she had brooded away the whole day 
and accomplished nothing, was no closer to a solution than she had been 
hours ago. And the doorbell was ringing. 

With a puzzled frown, she went to the door, opened it, looked out. 

Jim Burkhart stood there. He looked bloodshot and bleary-eyed, and the blast 
of liquor on his breath nearly knocked Rosalie over. He peered at her for a 
long moment. 

"Yes?" she said, coolly. What was Burkhart doing home this early, anyway? 
"Mind if I come in?" 

"What do you want?" 

"Lemme talk to you," he muttered hoarsely. "Lemme talk to you!" 

He pushed the door open. Rosalie could not hold it shut. He forced his way 
in and leaned against the door as though about to topple over. He was 
white-faced and trembling and sweaty, and there was a dirty stubble of beard 
on his lean jaw. 

"What's the matter?" Rosalie asked, alarmed. 

"I got canned. Laid off indefinitely. Me with kids and seniority and all the 
rest!" 

"I'm sorry," she said automatically. 

"Yeah. Sorry. And where's Paula and the kids? At the amusement park, that's 
where! Spending money! I got to go on relief now, and I come home in the 
middle of the afternoon and nothing but a note from them." 

Rosalie tried to hide her distaste. "I'm sure they'll be back soon," she 
said. "If you'll excuse me now, I've got a lot of work to do around the 
house. So if you don't mind-" 

"I do mind." 

He's drunk, Rosalie realized. 

Burkhart was rocking uneasily back and forth on the balls of his feet. "I 
lost my job, you know what that means? A hundred eight bucks a week and all 
of a sudden I don't have a thing. I'm sick to my stomach. I gotta get it 
outa my system. I come home and I figure Paula'll be here and I'll take a 
good ride on her. Always makes me feel better, take a good little ride. Only 
she ain't around. Damn fat-ass bitch went to the amusement park! Why ain't 
she ever around when I need her? Just like a woman!" 

"Look, will you go now, or-" 

"First let's you and me go into the bedroom, baby." 

"Are you out of your head?" 

"Paula ain't here. I gotta have a woman. I'll crack up if I don't get it 
right now." 

"You think I'm going to stand in for Paula?" 

"Why the hell not? Am I so ugly?" 

Rosalie was quivering with rage. "You got one hell of a nerve, Burkhart. You 
come home in a snit and Paula isn't around to comfort you, so you figure 
I'll do it? Well, you better figure it again I" 

"You think you're too good for me?" 

"I'm a married woman, friend. Even if I liked you, I wouldn't make it with 
you under these terms. And I don't like you. Now get out." 

He shook his head stubbornly. "But what about Lew Longstreet? He ain't your 
husband either, but you put out for him. I saw you and him go into the 
bedroom, and the both of you bare-ass in your birthday suits. You wasn't 
playing tiddlywinks in there. And what about Satterfield? Don't you think I 
know you were with him once or twice? He banged you plenty, I bet. Only you 
turn up your nose at me. You get laid right and left, and then you come tell 
me you're a married woman!" 

Rosalie scowled worriedly at the door. "I'll ask you once more to leave. 
Then I'll call for help." 

"You whoring little bitch, don't go snotty on me!" Burkhart boomed. "What'll 
it hurt you, anyhow? Nobody misses a slice off a cut loaf. I'm going outa my 
head on account of getting laid off, and you can help me, and you stick your 
nose up." 

"Plenty of women around here would be glad to help you out," Rosalie said. 
"I won't." 

"But you're the one I want. You think I couldn't get it from Joy Robbins if 
I asked? She put it on the line for me plenty. But you. Ever since that 
party, I wanted you. And I saw you at that card game, those pretty boobs of 
yours, that sweet little butt, they damn near drove me nuts. And Longstreet 
grabs you. Well, now it's my turn." 

"I'm warning you, you better get out-" 

She picked up the phone. 

Burkhart crossed the room in a couple of quick, ungainly bounds and knocked 
the receiver from her hands. The phone went skittering off its little table 
and dropped to the carpeted floor with a muffled thud. Burkhart caught hold 
of her and slapped her cheeks twice, hard. 

"You little bitch, I'll leave when I got what I want out of you!" 

"Let me alone!" 

"You goddamn fancy-pants whore, you aren't gonna say no to me! I'm gonna get 
a piece of tail outa you before I leave here! Just like Longstreet did, and 
Satterfield, and God knows how many others!" 

"Let go of me!" she said. 

He had his arms around her, and she felt his lean, wiry body gripping her 
tightly, and there was the stink of sweat and cheap whiskey about him, 
making her gag. She brought her knees up hard, but he blocked the kick 
before it could arrive at its target. 

He pinioned her arms with astonishing strength. He was grunting like a pig 
as he caught his breath in the wild struggle. 

"Come on," he muttered. "Don't fight it, will you? It'll hurt a lot less if 
you just ease up and give in relaxed. You got to give it to me anyhow." 

"I'll scream and get everyone over here." 

"You scream and I'll bust your face in." 

"You're out of your head! You could get twenty years for this, you know 
that?" 

Burkhart only laughed. Then he clamped one powerful hand over her jaws and 
mouth. Rosalie writhed and wriggled. Panic pounded inside her. This ugly, 
smelly, dirty man was going to rape her, she realized. He figured that 
getting some sex out of her was only his due. She let others have it, didn't 
she? 

He worked one hand into the collar of her blouse, ripping outward and 
downward. Buttons flew in all directions, and the blouse fell open. Somehow 
it seemed blasphemous to let her breasts be seen by this man, even though 
she had bared them willingly enough at that card game. Rosalie fought 
helplessly, futilely. He dug three fingers into one of the cups of her bra 
and yanked savagely. The straps went taut, then popped. Her bare breasts 
tumbled into the open. He got one hand clamped on them, gripping hard, 
brutalizing the delicate nipples. 

She looked at his face. It was the face of a lust-crazed madman. 

Then he was dragging her back, over to the couch, forcing her down. One hand 
got at the belt of her slacks, pulled it open. He found the button and 
yanked at it, and then there was a zipper, and then he was hauling her 
slacks down, getting them off. 

She kicked and scratched, but she was all but helpless against the wild fury 
of his assault. All she was wearing now was a pair of pink silk panties, and 
she clutched them to her, but he dug his fingers under the waistband and 
pulled, and there was the sound of ripping material. 

He pulled the shreds and tatters of the panties from her. She pressed her 
thighs together in an attempt to hold at least some of the material back, 
but he grabbed at it, and then she was completely naked, totally bare to his 
gaze and his touch. He was practically drooling. She felt his hands on her 
bare breasts, on her buttocks, on the soft flesh of her thighs. 

"Damn you-hold still!" he muttered. 

"You'll pay for this!" 

"Why can't you just ease up?" he asked. 

Then he was on top of her, pinning her arms down with his knees, holding her 
with his body, making it impossible for her either to move or to fight him 
off. She tried to wrap her legs together, to lock one ankle around the 
other, but his strength was unexpectedly great, and he wedged his leg 
between hers and pivoted, forcing her grip to break. The next instant he had 
his hands on her thighs, pulling her legs apart, gripping her tight. 

Then, she felt the sudden, intolerable, blazing pain as the sword of his 
prick thrust through delicate, unready, unwilling tissues, and she sensed 
him moving his body back and forth inside her cunt, ploughing deep into the 
sanctuary of her body, moving with brutish eagerness, taking no heed of the 
agony she felt. 

She fought to find her voice. 

She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a piping, little whimper, 
barely audible. 

She hesitated. She tried again, struggling to find her voice and cry out 
against the thing this man was doing to her. 

This time she was able to shriek. 

It was a high-pitched wail of despair, the cry of a woman who has been 
violated. It was a banshee's wild yell of hatred. It communicated the fierce 
pain, the loathing of this beast of a man who had stabbed hotly into her 
with such malevolent brutality. He hardly seemed to notice that she was 
screaming. He still bore down on her, wounding her, tormenting her, ripping 
her apart. His eyes were fixed, set in drunken, stupid, piggish lust. 

Her fists pounded on his back. He laughed. 

"Bud!" she cried. "Bud, help me!" 

But Bud wouldn't be home for half an hour yet. How many times would Burkhart 
take her before then? How long would this agony endure? 

Why didn't someone else come? 

"What the hell is this?" a deep voice asked. 

"Bud!" she cried, astonished. 

She looked past Burkhart's shoulder. Bud stood there, staring down at the 
two-backed beast on the couch, his face white with shock. 

"Get him off me!" she urged. "He's drunk! He came in here and raped me!" 

Burkhart growled. Bud put his hand on the thin man's shoulder, trying to tip 
him loose. He clung to Rosalie, gripping her breasts, refusing to loose his 
hold on her body. 

Bud wrenched an arm up and back. Burkhart howled and let go. Bud yanked him 
to his feet. 

The two of them faced each other, the burly, powerful one and the thin, 
shifty-eyed one. Bud looked like some avenging demon. Burkhart shifted his 
weight from one foot to the other, and zipped up the fly of his dirty 
overalls with an oddly self-conscious gesture. 

"What the hell's going on?" Bud demanded in a harsh, guttural voice. 

"He raped me!" Rosalie said. 

"Ain't so," Burkhart said. He even managed a grin. "It just ain't so, Bud." 

"He's lying!" 

"You are," Burkhart said. 

"Hold it," Bud snapped. "Let's have one or the other of you talking!" He 
glowered at Burkhart. "You first, Jim. What's the story?" 

Burkhart snuffled apologetically. "I got laid off at the factory today. I 
come home, I was feeling pretty low. And Paula not around, you know? She 
went to the amusement park with the kids. So I come next door. I just want 
someone to talk to, you understand? I tell your wife here what happened, and 
she says, 'Oh, you poor man, let me show you how sorry I am.' Next thing I 
know, she's ripping off her clothes and dragging me over to the couch here, 
and pulls me down on top of her and starts begging for it-" 

"Bud, he's crazy! I never-" 

"Sure you did!" Burkhart spat at her. "You laid me just like you laid for 
Lew Longstreet and Frank Satterfield and a lot of other guys! Sorry you had 
to find out about it, Bud. But at least don't go blow up about it. You had 
Paula plenty, I know. And I didn't object. So now your wife sets her cap for 
me, well, turnabout's fair play and all." 

Huddling nude on the couch, Rosalie tried to hide her breasts and outraged 
loins with her hands. She fought back hysteria and said, "Take a look at my 
clothes, Bud. They're ripped to shreds. Does that look like I undressed 
myself? And why is he all scratched up? And where'd I get these bruises?" 
She bent forward, scooping up her tattered panties. "You look at these, 
Bud!" 

Burkhart was trembling. His flimsy story was exposed for the fraud it was, 
utterly demolished. 

Bud took the shreds of silk from Rosalie. He turned them over in his hands, 
and his expression grew terrible. 

"I ought to break every bone in your skinny body, Burkhart," he said coldly. 
"I ought to kill you." 

"Look here, Bud-" 

"Shut your mouth!" 

"Wait a second, Bud," Burkhart begged. "It ain't as if you never had my 
wife, or that other men never had yours. It ain't the same thing at all. 

We-" 

"You raped her," Bud said slowly. "You raped my wife, Burkhart. That isn't 
the way we do it around here. If you can get it honestly, you take it. 
Otherwise you leave it alone You don't go around raping. I ought to kill you 
for what you did." 

"Now, look, Bud, how was I to know she'd put up all that fight?" 

"Shut up!" Bud roared. 

He took a step forward, toward the now thoroughly frightened Burkhart, and 
his fist snapped out, colliding solidly with a point a few inches below 
Burkhart's throat. The thin man gasped and backed up. Bud brought his left 
fist around in a short, choppy arc and cracked it into the long column of 
Burkhart's nose. Blood spurted. Bud stood waiting as Burkhart staggered and 
weaved. 

"For God's sake don't hit me any more," Burkhart muttered thickly. 

Bud didn't answer. He waded in again and hit Burkhart in the mouth. There 
was a cracking sound, and Burkhart, looking bewildered, coughed blood and 
teeth into the palm of his hand. He tried to swing at Bud, who sidestepped 
it without difficulty and rocketed four more punches into Burkhart, two into 
his chest and two into the pit of his stomach. 

Burkhart's legs were rubbery. He sagged and rocked, out of control. 

Rosalie watched the beating impassively as it progressed. It was totally 
one-sided, and the punishment Burkhart was taking was dreadful. But she 
found it hard to work up any sympathy for him. 

Burkhart was leaning against the wall. There were cuts under his eyes, and 
blood was running down his cheeks, and his nose was twisted askew, and 
trickles of blood oozed out of his mouth. His lips were split and already 
beginning to puff up. One eye was closed. Bud would not relent. He kept on 
pounding blows into him as though the thin man were a punching bag. Burkhart 
made feeble, little, mewling sounds that no longer added up to words. 

Finally the slaughter became frightening. Rosalie called out, "That's 
enough, Bud. You're murdering him. There won't be anything left of him." 

"He deserves it." 

"Enough is enough." 

Bud shrugged. "Okay, baby. Anything you say." 

No longer propped up by the stream of Bud's punches, Burkhart sagged to the 
floor like a straw man, and sat with his head dripping blood onto his 
trousers. Bud bent and pulled him to his feet, propelling him toward the 
door. Leaving the couch, Rosalie watched Bud haul Burkhart across to his 
trailer and dump him unceremoniously in front of the door. She hung back, 
out of sight. There were people outside, curious onlookers attracted by the 
screams and by the sounds of a battle. 

Her thighs and loins ached. Her entire body felt weak. She passed a mirror, 
saw the livid marks of bruises on her breasts and thighs. 

She dropped down into an armchair. The fabric was cold against her bare 
buttocks. 

After a moment, Bud came back in. 

"You all right, baby?" 

She did not look at him. "I'll be okay." 

"Burkhart won't. His face won't ever be the same again." 

"Get me my robe, Bud. I'm cold." 

"Sure, sweet. Sure." 

He went into the bedroom and returned a moment later. She got to her feet 
and slipped into the robe, pulling it tight and belting it. 

"Good thing you walked in when you did," she said. "Too bad you didn't get 
here half an hour earlier, though." 

"I had some time off. We finished our project early. I was going to surprise 
you, take you out to-inner. And then I walk in and I see naked legs kicking 
out from under Burkhart. Your legs." 

She stared at the floor, still shivering in the nervous backwash of the 
rape. "Get me a cigarette, will you, Bud? And a drink. I need a drink. A 
strong one." 

He opened a drawer, took out a pack of cigarettes, selected one, put it in 
his mouth. He puffed on it a moment or two until it was lit, then handed it 
to her- 

Rosalie put it between her lips and took short, nervous puffs, without 
inhaling. She could still feel the imprint of Burkhart's hands all over her 
body. 

Bud went to the liquor cabinet. "You want bourbon?" he asked. 

"Please." 

"Can't find the bottle," he reported a moment later. 

Her eyes flicked around the room, and color came to her face as she spied 
the half empty fifth standing on the coffee table. "Over there," she said. 

He fetched it. "Took a nip this afternoon?" 

"Just a little. I felt blue." 

"And then the excitement started." 

She nodded. "Lots of excitement." 

He found her glass too, and poured a healthy shot of bourbon into it. Going 
on into the kitchen, he got a couple of ice cubes. They clinked into the 
glasff. and she took it from him and gulped. 

Bud stood above her, his face set rigidly, grimly. "Better now?" 

"A little. I'm still shaky." 

He walked to the window. "Paula's home," h announced. "She just went in. 
Picked up Burkhart and dragged him in. And some busybody's rushing up to 
tell her what happened." 

Rosalie shivered. "I don't care. I'm not interested in those people." After 
a moment she added, "He tried to rape me once before. He had better luck 
this time." 

"You never told me that. When?" 

"The first Satterfield party. He wrestled me in the bedroom. Didn't get 
anywhere." 

"Why didn't you tell me?" 

"I figured it would blow over. I figured wrong. He was still sweating for 
me." 

"You didn't do anything to lead him on, did you?" 

Rosalie laughed bitterly. "I as much as told him to his face that he 
disgusted me. So he raped me." She laughed again, and it rose to a 
hysterical pitch. Suddenly she threw her cigarette into her drink, listening 
to the little sputter as it went out, and then set the drink down on the 
table with a bang. She began to shake and sob. "Hold me, Bud!" she 
whimpered. "Hold me tight! I'm so scared. I feel so goddamn miserable." 

 CHAPTER TWELVE 

She rose, going into his arms, and he embraced her and held her tightly. 
They walked across the room to the couch and sat down, Rosalie still folded 
into Bud's embrace. She closed her eyes. It was warm and comforting to have 
him hold her. His powerful arms radiated a feeling of complete security. 

They remained that way a long while, hardly moving. The shock of the rape 
was ebbing away slowly. It seemed more like something she had witnessed, 
rather than anything she had actually taken part in. Something very far 
away, growing ever more remote in time and space and memory. 

Yet she knew the impact of the assault would remain with her forever. 

Rosalie shook herself free of Bud's cradling arms. She moved down to the end 
of the couch and drew her housecoat tight around her and stared straight at 
him. 

She said, "I'm going to leave you, Bud." 

He blinked in a baffled way. "Leave me?" 

"That's right." She spoke in a soft but level voice, just above the 
threshold of audibility. "I've got to move out of here. I can't stay here 
any longer." 

"But why, Rosalie? Because of Burkhart? He won't bother you any more. You 
know that. He wouldn't dare to show his face around-" 

She shook her head. "You don't understand me, Bud. What Burkhart did this 
afternoon wasn't the cause of my wanting to leave. It's a symptom of what's 
wrong with our marriage, Bud." 

"How so?" 

"He came over here expecting that I would boff him. In his own mind, he 
thought that he had every right to expect it from me. He figured that as 
long as I was willing to make it with other men in the trailer camp, I'd do 
it with him, too, just for the asking. Especially since he was in a bad mood 
and wanted to be cheered up. Don't you see, Bud? What kind of marriage is it 
when strange men come knocking at the door asking to be made?" 

"He had his goddamn nerve," Bud muttered. 

"That isn't the point. He knew I was available some of the time. Two weeks 
married, and available." 

"What you and Lew Longstreet did at the party was-" 

"Was only the beginning. There would be other parties, other card games. 
Sooner or later, I'd have laid a dozen of the neighbors. Two dozen, in time. 
Burkhart saw what I was turning into. And he figured he'd get himself a 
little piece of it." She paused. "I laid Frank Satterfield, too." 

Bud looked surprised. "I thought Burkhart was lying when he said that." 

"He was telling the truth. I don't know how he found it out, but it's so." 

A muscle throbbed in his cheek. "When, Rosalie? And-why?" 

"The day I found out definitely that you had gone off with Rhona Macklin at 
the party. I wanted to get even with you somehow. And Frank happened to come 
along at the right, strategic moment." 

Bud rose from the couch and paced around the room in obvious anguish. "Frank 
Satterfield, too!" 

"Are you upset, Bud? Offended? How do you think I feel when you gallwant all 
over the trailer camp?" 

"Are there-other men, too-?" 

"No," she said. "No other men. Not yet." She couldn't bring herself to tell 
him about what she and Bonnie Campbell had done. "But two affairs is enough 
for two weeks, isn't it? Not to mention being raped." She laughed bitterly. 
"I've really learned a lot about sex since I came here to live with you. 
Give me another month and I can write my own Kinsey Report. Only I'm not 
going to take that month." 

"You're really leaving me?" 

"Yes, Bud." 

"And going home to mother?" 

She shook her head. "I couldn't do that. I'll get an apartment somewhere in 
Manhattan." 

"Alone?" 

"With one of my old friends, I guess. Girl friends. And I'll live a quiet 
life, think things out a bit. So maybe the next time I get married I'll know 
what I'm getting into." 

He went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink. His face looked 
tense and troubled. 

"You want a divorce?" 

"An annulment would be simpler," she said, in a crisp, efficient tone that 
she hardly recognized as her own voice. "No messy scandal. We simply say 
that you refused to let me have children, that you married me under the 
pretense that you loved children when actually you despise them. That'll 
dissolve the marriage the easy way. Otherwise there'll be all kinds of 
testimony about the goings on in this trailer camp, and a lot of people will 
get dragged in. I think an annulment's the best way, Bud." 

It was easy to talk in this business-like way, Rosalie thought. But she had 
to fight hard to keep from trembling. And the dull pain of the rape still 
throbbed in her loins. 

Bud seemed to be groping for words. After a long moment he said, "No, 
Rosalie. No." 

"No what?" 

"Let's not break up." 

"I told you. It can't go on this way." 

He was practically stammering. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead as 
he said, "Give me another chance, Rosalie. Give me another couple of weeks." 

"You had that chance, Bud." 

"When?" 

"This week." 

"I've been okay this week, haven't I? Have we gone to any orgies? Have you 
caught me picking up any girls around the camp?" 

"Not around the camp, no." 

"So?" 

She looked at him defiantly. "How about that tool shed at the missile base, 
Bud? You and Peggy Satterfield, at lunch times? No wonder you were such a 
reformed character all week!" 

His face went white. He sank down heavily into the armchair behind him, as 
though he were suddenly a man of ninety years. 

"So you know about that, do you?" 

"Yes. I know. Aren't you even going to try to deny it, Bud?" 

His shoulders heaved in futility. "Why bother?" Then animation came into his 
face. "Who told you about it?" he demanded angrily. "Does it matter, Bud?" 

"I want to know." 

"I'm not going to get anyone else involved in this," she said. "All that's 
important is that you've been having an affair with Peggy behind my back. 
And pretending to be oh-so-virtuous in the evenings. Rhona Macklin, Paula, 
Peggy-where does it end, Bud?" 

He looked at his hands. "I wish I knew." 

"I know where it ends for me. It ends right here and now. I can't take it 
any more, Bud. It's bad enough to be open about it, to take Paula into 
another room right in the middle of the party. But to go skulking around 
tool sheds at the base, and then to pretend you've reformed-uh-uh, Bud. That 
ends it. This is a crazy marriage. It shouldn't have lasted even the two 
weeks it did. The best thing for both of us is just to split up." 

"No. Don't say that." 

"You'll only make it hard for both of us, Bud. Stop pretending there's a 
marriage here. It's just a legal arrangement for sleeping together. And no 
monopoly, either." 

She rose and started into the bedroom. She was still on the edge of 
hysteria, but her mind was functioning with a kind of icy clarity she did 
not know it possessed. 

Bud followed her as far as the bedroom door and stood there, hands on his 
hips. 

"Are you going to leave right now?" he asked. 

"That's correct. If you'll be good enough to drive me down to the bus stop 
for New York." 

"You can't manage all those suitcases." 

"I'll just pack the little one with a few essentials. After I get settled, 
I'll come back for the rest. I'll ask you to drive them to my new apartment. 
It'll be the last favor I'll ask from you." 

"But where are you going to go now? You can't just wander around Manhattan 
with a suitcase in your hand, looking for a place to stay!" 

"There are hotels. I'll find one." 

"It's past five, Rosalie. It'll be getting dark soon. Can't you stay here 
tonight and go tomorrow?" 

She turned to face him. "There's only one bed here, Bud. And I'd hate to 
have to ask you to sleep on the couch or on the floor." 

He bit his lip, fuming inwardly, but saying nothing. Rosalie bent over and 
pulled her suitcase out from under the bed. She went to the chest of drawers 
and began removing enough clothing to see her through a couple of days. Bud 
watched, motionless, at the door. 

When she was half packed, she decided to get dressed. In one effortless 
motion she shrugged out of her housecoat. She heard Bud catch his breath at 
the sight of her nude body thus revealed. 

He took a step toward her. 

"Rosalie-" 

"Don't make it harder, Bud." 

He was standing right behind her. Suddenly he put his big hands over her 
bare breasts and gripped them tightly. She felt his hands trembling. He had 
her nipples between his fingers, rubbing them. Despite herself, a twinge of 
desire rippled through her loins. 

"Let go of me, Bud," she said quietly. "Don't go, Rosalie." 

"I have to. It's the only way." His hands still had not left the ripe mounds 
of her breasts. "If I stay here, there'll be parties, and wife-swapping, and 
more rapes, and scandal, and God knows what else." 

"Just one more chance?" 

"It's useless," she said. "Bud, I know you don't mean to do half the things 
you do. You just fall into temptation and give in." 

"I'm a weak man in many ways. I admit it." 

"And I have to suffer for it." 

He let go of her and stepped back. "Rosalie, do you think I want to have 
anything to do with Paula and Peggy and all the others? Do you think I enjoy 
cheating on you, hurting you?" 

"Then why do you do it?" 

"I don't know." Color flooded into his cheeks, and he shook his head 
bewilderedly. "Something comes over me. An irresistible compulsion. I see a 
woman and I want her. Even though I know it's wrong." 

"You're a sick man, Bud. You ought to see a psychiatrist, you know that?" 

He shrugged heavily. "Maybe. Maybe." 

"But it isn't only you that makes me want to get out of here. It's the whole 
place. The entire atmosphere of sordid sex. All these people here, living 
only for pleasure, out for whatever sex they can get. With no idea of real 
decency, no notion of what it means to have dignity. That's why I want to 
clear out." 

She turned away from him again, still naked. He reached for her, one 
quivering hand cupping the globe of a ripe, gently swaying breast, the other 
stealing down her body to stroke the sleek, satiny smoothness of her hip and 
buttock. Despite herself, she shivered a little at his touch. She wanted to 
brush him irritably away and get on with her packing, before something 
happened that she did not want to happen. 

They stood that way a long moment, neither of them moving, hardly even 
breathing. 

Then the telephone rang. 

It shattered the strange spell. "I'll get it," Bud said, and left the room. 

Rosalie stood stock still, wondering who was calling. She caught sight of 
herself in the mirror above the dresser, saw the bruises Burkhart had left. 
She also saw that her nipples were standing up stiffly. She felt them 
throbbing. Her whole body ached ... ached with desire.... 

Bud returned. "It's for you," he said. "Bonnie Campbell. What would she 
want?" 

"To talk to me, I'd guess." She made her way past him, the tips of her 
breasts grazing his arm as she passed. She wished she had not taken off her 
robe. Bud's eyes were glued hungrily to her nakedness, feasting in 
imagination on the outjutting thrusts of her breasts, the pale ripeness of 
her lush buttocks. She felt a tinge of embarrassment. But, even so, she 
enjoyed being exposed this way in front of him. It was an oddly satisfying 
feeling. 

She picked up the receiver. 

"Hello?" 

"Darling. I heard the whole gory story just now!" 

"What story?" 

"About what Jim Burkhart did to you. And what Bud did to Jim. It's all over 
the camp." 

"Is it? Doesn't anything stay secret around here?" Rosalie realized she was 
blushing bright red down to her breasts. 

"Some things do," Bonnie replied. "Like you and me, darling. I've been 
waiting for you to come back and visit me, you know." 

"I told you I wouldn't." 

"Yes, but that was before this happened. Listen, now you see men for what 
they really are. The rapist in them is always right below the surface. 
They're all like that." 

"Look, Bonnie-" 

"I want to tell you something else," Bonnie said. "Helena moved out this 
afternoon. She's gone to live with somebody in Greenwich Village that she's 
been seeing for a while. So I'm all alone here. Rosalie-" 

"Yes?" 

"Leave Bud. He's no good for you. Come stay with me. We'll pull out of the 
trailer camp and take that trip I was talking about. Just the two of us. No 
wild man to paw you, no filthy beasts of rapists. It'll be wonderful, 
Rosalie. I promise you, it'll be the best time of your life. We can leave-" 

"No." 

"You're going to stick with Bud after all that's happened?" 

"I didn't say that. But what you suggest is out. Definitely out. I don't 
mean to hurt you, Bonnie. You've been nice to me, and that's something 
hardly anyone else around here has been. But I'm not your sort of girl. I'd 
never be happy in a setup like that." 

"Try it for a while!" Bonnie begged. 

"Sorry. No. Good-bye, Bonnie." 

She put down the phone. 

Bud was standing a few feet away, an odd expression on his face. 

"What was that all about?" he asked. "Or aren't you speaking to me?" 

"Bonnie heard about the rape, about you beating Burkhart up. She wanted to 
know if that had soured me on men completely. Seems her roommate Helena 
moved out on her today. She'd like me to come live with her and go traveling 
all around the country in her trailer." 

"I'll be damned," Bud muttered. "Does she think you're queer?" 

"She'd like to convert me. But I'm not interested. I told her she'd have to 
get along without me. And so will you. Oh, Bud, why can't my life be normal? 
I don't want to gallivant around America with a Lesbian! And I don't want to 
be married to a man who can't control his sex drives." She shrugged. "Let me 
though. I've got to finish packing and get dressed." 

"Yeah," Bud said. "Maybe you ought to get dressed first and then pack. Or 
don't you care what you're doing to me? Showing me your breasts, your bare 
backside, just to remind me what I'm losing?" 

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't realize I was disturbing you. I figured you'd 
already had your workout for the day." 

"That was a low blow." 

"Didn't you deserve it?" 

"Not today." 

"You took a day off from the tool shed, is that it?" 

Bud shook his head slowly. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you." 

"Told me what?" 

"Skip it." 

"I want to know what you're hinting at, Bud." 

"Let it drop!" 

"Don't hide anything, Bud." He sighed. "I told Peggy this afternoon it was 
all over. That I didn't want her to come any more." 

"Really?" 

"I've been doing a lot of thinking, these past couple of days," Bud said. 
"About the lousy way I've been treating you. This week, for instance. You 
were so happy because I had 'reformed.' Only I hadn't reformed, not really. 
And I hated myself for lying to you. So I made up my mind this morning. None 
of this sneaky stuff any more. No more tool-shed fun. I'd really reform. And 
then I could live up to what a husband was supposed to be." 

"Bud, do you mean what you're saying?" 

He gestured hopelessly. "What good is promising and swearing? Yes, I mean 
it. But some busybody had to go tell you about the tool-shed deal. And now 
you'll never believe a word I say. You'll think I'm just telling you all 
this now to keep from losing you. It's only human nature to think so." 

She looked at him silently for a long moment, moistening her dry lips. Her 
nipples still ached and throbbed, and she felt the pounding of the sex urge 
in her loins. She made no move to get dressed. 

"Bud-" 

"What is it, Rosalie?" 

"Where'd we go off the tracks? Where did everything get fouled up?" 

"Right at the beginning," be said tiredly. "With me. The sort of guy I am. 
And the sort of place this is." 

I didn't want it to end this way. Two weeks and everything gone smash." 

"I didn't want it either." 

"We were really in love," she said. "At least, I loved you. I loved you more 
than anything in the world. That's the only reason I stayed as long as I 
did." 

"And I loved you," he muttered. "No matter how I treated you, I loved you. I 
love you." 

She turned away. "I've got to get out of here, Bud. We don't belong 
together. We can't ever make a go of it, and we'd better admit it right 
now." 

"Don't go." 

"I have to." 

"We can make another try," Bud said. "Listen to me, Rosalie. I'll get a 
transfer to another missile base. Somewhere out in the west. Arizona, New 
Mexico, someplace like that. And we'll drive out there and start everything 
all over, where the air is clean, fresh, where there's none of this crap 
around. No Burkharts, no Satterfields, none of these people. And you'll have 
a couple of babies, and I'll live a life of blamess virtue, and-and-" His 
voice broke. "Wouldn't you want that, Rosalie?" 

Hot tears were forcing their way into the corners of her eyes. She fought 
them back. 

"Of-of course I'd want that." 

"Will you stay, then?" 

"It's crazy, Bud. It won't ever work. There'll be different people out 
there, but they'll be the same sort. I know it. It'll be the same old thing 
all over again." 

"It won't. I promise you!" 

"And you mean it, right now," she said. "But how will it be when temptation 
comes along? Suppose a couple of pretty girls are living in the next 
trailer?" 

"I won't even look at them." 

"I wish I could believe that." 

"I can't give you an iron-bound oath," he said hoarsely. "All I can do is 
tell you that I love you, that I want to keep you, that I'm trying as hard 
as I can to fight this thing inside me, that I mean to go on fighting it." 

She couldn't hold the tears back any longer. They came bursting out. 

"Bud-" 

"I love you, baby." 

"Hold me. Hold me tight. Let me cry it all out." 

He wrapped his big arms around her, pressing her head against his broad 
chest. A hundred conflicting thoughts ran through her mind. She was 
wavering. The original icy force of her decision to leave him had weakened, 
had melted. 

Stay with him? 

Give him another chance? 

Salvage this marriage that shouldn't be salvaged? 

It was foolish, she knew. How long would it be before all his bold promises 
tarnished, before all his staunch declarations of fidelity faded? He was 
that sort of man. He admitted it himself. 

The unfaithful sort. 

But she loved him. 

Despite everything, she loved him. 

"Tight," she whispered. "Tighter." 

And then she was turning her face upward toward him, and his lips were 
kissing away the tears, tenderly, first one eye lightly touched, then the 
other, then her cheek being grazed by his lips, then lips touching lips, a 
cool kiss, and he withdrew to murmur, "I love you, Rosalie. I want you to 
stay with me." 

"I love you, Bud." 

Then she was kissing him with all the strength at her command. Her lips 
pressed tightly against his, until she could feel the hard wall of his 
teeth, and her tongue snaked out, parting his lips, diving deep within his 
mouth. Together, they moved back up the narrow corridor, toward the bedroom, 
his arms atill around her nude body, one big hand outspread on her back the 
other cupping the cheeks of her buttocks, stroking the soft, smooth, firm 
flesh. They reached the bed. "Love me, Bud," she whispered. His hard, 
muscular body, rigid with desire, was against hers. She closed her eyes 
tight, feeling the rising excitement in her breasts and thighs and loins and 
buttocks. The brutal rape had left her aroused and restless, and now as 
Bud's hands roamed her body she felt herself trembling with eagerness. Her 
breasts were in his hands. He was cupping the warm, ripely rounded fullness 
of them, and the nipples were growing stiffer, until she thought she could 
no longer stand the pain of their throbbing. 

She buried her head in the side of his neck, taking little nips of the skin, 
while her breasts flattened out against his chest, the hot, hard points of 
her nipples against him. 

"I want you, Bud! Now! Now!" 

They tumbled down onto the bed. She was thrashing, demanding everything he 
could give her, and they rolled over and over on the bed like two wild 
things in rut and she came to rest beneath him, arching her body up and 
clutching at his arms and trying to merge their two straining bodies 
completely into one, and abruptly they came together and she imprisoned him 
within her body and she heard the harsh, irregular grunting sounds of 
pleasure coming from him. 

Closing her eyes tight, spreading her legs wide she gave herself up to 
ecstasy, and shivers of wonder throbbed through her body again and again and 
again, until she thought no more delight could be had, and then still again. 
While all the torments, all the doubts, all the decisions were blurred and 
forgotten, put out of mind by the overpoweringly heavenly force of this 
single extended moment of bliss. 

"Now!" she gasped. "Now, darling! Everything you have!" 

He met her furious assault. Body pistoned against body, and pounding furies 
of pleasure raced through her limbs, and then he was breathing hard, sobbing 
intakes of breath that told of his delight, and she threw her head back, 
made little groaning sounds of ecstasy, and she felt his lips on her breasts 
and his hands on her back, and there was a sudden mutual quiver, an 
instantaneous and simultaneous release of tension coming over them, a flood 
of well-being.... 

A long time later, perhaps an hour, Rosalie gently disengaged herself from 
him. His head was pillowed in her breasts, and he was smiling. 

"Where are you going?" he asked. "To put the things I packed back in the 
drawers." 

"You're going to stay with me? "Of course I am, silly. Did you think that 
was just my way of saying good-bye?" 

He laughed. "I love you, do you know that? I love you so absolutely goddamn 
much." 

"I love you, Bud. 

She left the bed and padded nude across the room to the open dresser 
drawers. Methodically, she began to put away the clothes she had packed. 
"Take out something fancy for tonight," he said. "Why?" 

"It's too late for you to start fussing about dinner. We'll go out. Maybe 
drive into the city, get ourselves a real swell meal." 

"All right, Bud." 

"And then tomorrow, I'll put in for the transfer. They were looking for men, 
anyway, to go out to White Sands. I'll sign up. It'll probably mean a raise, 
and relocation money, too." 

"And it'll mean getting away from here." 

"Yes," he echoed. "Away from here." She closed the drawer and glanced over 
her shoulder at the big man on the bed. He was looking at her, admiring the 
steep rise of her breasts, the gentle slope of her buttocks out from the 
small of her back. 

He loves me, she thought. And I love him. And we'll move to White Sands and 
live happily ever after. 

It sounds nice. 

She smiled cynically. By this time, she knew him well enough to understand 
his weaknesses as well as his strengths. The honeymoon wouldn't last 
forever- 

There would be other women for him, sooner or later. And other men for her. 
She knew it. The pattern could not be broken simply by a hug and a kiss and 
a roll in the sack and mutual vows of love. There were deep, uncontrollable 
forces driving him on. 

But I love him, she thought. 

And I'm married to him-for better or for worse- 

She turned to him. "I think I'll wear my strapless tonight, darling." 

"Fine. Should I put on my tux?" 

"If you want. And pick out a good place." 

"I'll pick the best in town. And we can go dancing afterward. Come home at 
all hours. And then stay up till morning making love. How does that sound?" 

"It sounds grand, darling." 

"I think so, too. I think it's all going to be great from here on, Rosalie." 

"Let's hope so," she said softly. She turned away, so he could not see the 
doubt reflected on her face. "It's all going to be wonderful, Bud. Just you 
and me, and no interlopers." 

"And no talk about packing suitcases." 

"No suitcases," she said. 

"Love me?" 

"Love you." 

"Then start getting some clothes on, I'm starved." 

She took a bra from the drawer, slipped it into place around her breasts. 

For better or for worse, she thought. I'll give him another chance. And then 
another, and then another. Because I love him. Because I can't live without 
him. 

She went on into the bathroom to make up her face. She wanted to look her 
best, tonight. It would be sort of a special night for them. The night they 
turned over the new leaf. She looked at her face in the bathroom mirror, and 
smiled, and closed her eyes for a moment to think back over everything. Then 
she opened her eyes and wiped away the tears with a bit of tissue, and got 
down to the business of putting on her make-up for the big evening that lay 
ahead. 


THE END
