Chapter 9
FROM THEN ON, ZOE SAW LITTLE OF EITHER Link or Mendez. If both men were intentionally avoiding her, they were succeeding. And she was glad they were. She wanted nothing to do with the foreman, ever. And she had decided that it might be best to let her baby break the ice for her with Link. A grandpa would be more-likely to mellow toward his son's wife when he held his grandchild in his arms.
Jock got so absorbed in his work that he sometimes went two nights without love. But, when he did, he always made up for it on the third night, spending hours at it, making love to her again and again. He quit asking her whether she wanted him to wait for her to try for a climax, because they had both given up on her ever being able to know that joy. She told him that she was sure many women never went off-but that that didn't stop their enjoying the sex act and providing every pleasure in it that their husbands could possibly ask for. There was even an advantage in their way of screwing, she told him; he didn't have to wait for her at all, and that let him work up and go off whatever way he wanted to. He laughed delightedly and said she was real goddamn right. And maybe some day she would surprise them and pop too, he said. He hoped so. So did she. She wanted the pleasure of a sexual explosion more than anything else in her sex life. But she wondered whether she would ever experience it.
The weeks passed, each one much the same as the last one, until Link sent Jock on a trip to the Northwest coast. Stores in Oregon and Washington had written to inquire about the feather products; Link wanted them presented well, and by a Tawnley. He said Jock might as well learn the techniques of selling before he got any older. He had been trained for it all his life.
Zoe hoped Link would say she could go along, but he didn't. When Jock asked to take her, Link refused curtly, saying this was to be a business trip, not a honeymoon. So Jock left without her, promising to cut the jaunt as short as he could.
Zoe was in her fourth month now, and showing more than she had thought a woman did at this stage. She dreaded being alone in the house, lovely as it was, while Jock was away. She wished there were other women, at least one other woman, here on the ranch. If she got sick, there would be nobody to tend to her these next few days. And she was too far from town to drive there by herself, in search of a doctor or a hospital. Oh, Jock had taken her into Wayside every two weeks since she came here, to let Doctor Gorham check her thoroughly. But now she had no doctor, no woman, no husband, nobody-for almost a week at the very least. What if she should miscarry? What if she should have some kind of fright, from Mendez or another of the rough-looking men who moved among the birds and the buildings? God, she dreaded the nights-the long-long nights most of all ...
Jock had been gone three days when she heard a knock at her door one night. Her heart began to pound so hard that it shook her all over. Who could be wanting into her house? Who could possibly--?
She gathered all her strength and called out, "Who is it?'
"It's Link."
And it was his bass voice. She would know it anywhere. She was so relieved that she flung, the door wide and tumbled into his arms.
"Oh, Link, I've been so-so scared! I was never so alone in my life before and I ... I ... Well, it's all so new here, and I-"
"There, there, cry if you want to." The man held her close against his broad chest, wiping her tear-wet eyes with his monogrammed handkerchief. "I've felt like a heel, knowing you were 'way out here alone. Jesus, I should have sent you with Jock. Next time I will."
He sat down, taking her with him to the divan. His arm was still about her shoulders, and somehow it seemed right for it to be there. She turned her face into his shoulder and smelled the special man-smell of him, so clean and outdoorsy-and terribly, terribly male. She felt herself beginning to tremble. She must move away from him, until their hips no longer touched, until the warmth of his breath did not stir the sweat on her face.
But she couldn't move, or else she didn't really want to. It didn't matter which. All that mattered was that she had never felt so female in her life.
She raised her face and said softly, "Link, I wish--Oh, Link, I know it's bad, but I wish we could-"
"So do I, Little One." His face was upon hers, and the next moment their mouths were pressed together, their tongues seeking each other's, their hands reaching, probing, needing, demanding.
With her head resting in his lap, he took off her dress and slip, unfastened the bra so that it dropped away, and lifted off her panties. His eyes went over her swollen body, and his hands touched the swelling gently. "You've got my flesh and blood in there, Zoe." His voice was tender. "It's almost as if I put it there."
"I-I know. And, oh, Link, I ... wish you had."
"You've wanted me since the moment we first looked at each other, haven't you, Little One?"
"Oh, God, yes, Link, you know I have. At first I thought it was fear. But now I know that it was love all the time. I want you so bad that I don't think I can stand it."
"I've wanted you the same way, my precious. That was why I didn't want you to stay here. I knew I'd come to you sooner or later, and that we'd feel the urge to give ourselves to each other ... Jesus, I haven't wanted, a woman since-well, hell, since too long to remember. My nights with Clitey, and with the other whores, were just-sex activity. They meant nothing. But if I could sharpen up this knife that's swelling up on the front of me and cut that frosted cake of yours ... Oh, Jesus, I could want you, Little One. I could want you more than a man ever wanted a woman before."
She was too thrilled, too excited, too worked up to push him away or want to. She let him kiss her stomach, her thigh, the hair that covered her crotch. She whispered, "We have to go ahead and do it:, Link. We can't stop now. Oh, God, I have to feel you in me, my dearest. I have to have your prick!"
His face was gray. "I want to put it into you, my precious, more than I ever wanted anything else before. But what about your baby? Will intercourse hurt it? I know it's alive in you, moving sometimes. I've seen it stir since I undressed you. And I want it to be born alive and well."
"It will be, sweet. And I can have sex relations for a little while longer. Doctor Gorham said I could for three weeks yet. It will be all right for us to ... to do it ... if you really want me."
"Want you? Oh, Jesus, I never wanted any woman the way I want you!"
He carried her to a bedroom and laid her gently on the bed. In a trice he was nude beside her, and she thrilled anew to his hard body, so mature, so firm, so all man. This was the male she had dreamed of, had yearned for, had prayed to belong to. This could be heaven forever.
He said, "I'll be good to you, precious. I won't hurt you." His hands petted her great breasts and he bent his head to kiss them. "Lord, I thought these bosoms .couldn't be real, love. I figured you were wearing falsies of some kind. But it's all you, Little One. They're the sweetest breasts, the most beautiful nipples, that ever grew on any woman anywhere."
He didn't suck on them; he only touched them, held them against his face, kissed them slowly and reverently. That was the difference between a boy and a man, Zoe mused; Jock sucked on her breasts like a baby, but Link fondled them in a man's sexual desire. Link was a man in all the ways that his son was not; he was the man she had been living for, as long as she could remember.
He touched her crotch, kissing her all the while.
"You're ready for me, Little One. You're warm and ready."
"Oh, God, yes, Link. I'm so ready I don't think I can wait!"
He eased himself on top of her. She said, "Don't go slow unless you want to, sweet. You won't hurt me. Just give it to me, my dearest-give me all the hard you've got!"
And she felt her crotch opening to receive the warm force of his great maleness. She had never felt such pain, or such joy, before. Jock's countless screwings, night after night, seemed another life, another world. It-was as if she had never had a real man inside her until now. She crushed him to her, holding tightly, moaning, crying, moving as he moved, knowing she was rising to the same climax that he soared toward.
Their mouths fused, they swayed together, their bodies straining for fulfillment-and finding it in all its glory and sweetness and magnificence ...
When he pulled his body out of hers, he asked, "Is that the best you ever-went off, precious?"
She was still shaky from the thrill of it. "Oh, Link, Link, it's the first time for me, the very first! I've tried and tried, with Jock, but I never could. It took a man to put himself in me and make me go, my dearest. It took your prick, your powerful prick, to give me my first climax."
He held her a long time, there in the bed, kissing her face, her throat, her great breasts. For treasured, titillating moments he buried his face between the round mounds of flesh with their pink nipples edged in brown. And he said, more softly than she had ever heard him say anything, "What a woman you are, little Zoe! What marvelous breasts these are, and what a perfect crotch you've got! Jesus, Little
One, a man could be happy forever if he came home to these big bouncers every night, and could stab that lovely little pussy sometimes."
She drew his mouth to hers, forced his kiss to match hers and go beyond it; to blend their lips, their tongues, their very souls, until they were almost as much a part of each other as they had been when they were clasped in sexual Intercourse.
As their mouths drew apart at last, she said, "Don't we have to do this again, my dearest? Don't we love each other so much that we can't help making love all the time? I feel like I'd die if you didn't take me again and again. I never dreamed that love could ever be so ... so perfect!"
His lips were on her breasts again, and his bands held them tightly, pushing them together, forcing the nipples to stand out in pink points. "Jesus, Zoe, neither did II Oh, God, neither did I!"
"You never loved like this before? Not even with Inez?"
He shook his head. "I was only a boy when I married her. She was a cute trick, and we thought we were in love. But she never learned to enjoy sex, and she never learned to like this ranch. It was a dinky little farm then, of course; but she wouldn't give it, or me, a chance. She griped from the day I brought her here until the day she divorced me. I don't think Jock ever knew we were divorcedbut we were, when he was two years old. She came back here sometimes, always staying in her half of the house we had-then, but never sleeping with me. When she died, I couldn't cry over her because I hadn't loved her since our honeymoon. And I hadn't touched her crotch since before Jock was born."
"And there haven't been any other women you could really love ... until me."
Jesus, that's true, my precious-it's too goddamn true! Oh, damn it all to hell, how could this happen to us, Zoe? How could two people wait as long as we have to find complete fulfillment, only to have to give it up?"
She pressed her face against his bare shoulder, feeling the beat of his heart beneath her cheek. "Darling, darling, we can't give it up! You're the only man I ever wanted to give myself to. I can't go back to Jock after you. He's a boy, a youngster who knows nothing of the kind of love you've given me tonight. He doesn't know how to work me up, how to hold me, how to kiss my breasts, where to touch my crotch to arouse me. And his prick isn't as powerful as yours, my dearest. Yours is the very one I have to have, the only one I ever want in me again. I can't stand thinking of our giving each other up, now that we know we can-"
"Zoe, my precious, don't go on hurting us both." The man's deep voice was sad. "Tonight is all we will ever have. We must enjoy it now, and treasure the memory of it afterward. We will never make love again.".
"But why, Link? Why won't we make love again, when we love each other so desperately."
"Because you are my son's wife."
"Can't I divorce him?"
"No, precious.. I wouldn't do that to Jock. He loves you, and he has a right to you and the child he fathered. Besides, he and I are partners on this ranch, and nothing must disrupt the harmony that we have here."
"Can't we even meet, maybe once in a long time?" "No, precious. No looks or words must pass between us that will even hint at what we've done tonight, We will go back to our separate worlds, here on the same land. We will speak to each other only impersonally, or perhaps like father and daughter. There will be no repetition of our .great love." He gave her breasts a last caress, one at a time, letting his lips linger long on each of the twin mounds. Then he moved from her and stepped out of the bed. "I'm going now, Zoe."
She strained toward him. "Is it this easy for you to leave me? Can you force yourself to forget?'
"Certainly I can. I have lived on grit and will power for longer than I can remember. My life, my feelings, even my thoughts are under absolute control, almost all the time. Tonight is the first time I ever let myself go, since-I can't recall when."
He began to dress. "I didn't intend to touch you when I came here, Zoe. I meant only to ask if you were all right. I'd been feeling guilty about making you stay at home when Jock left ... But when you opened the door and fell into my arms, I went to pieces. I'd wanted you so long, so goddamned long ... " Then he squared his shoulders and set his bronzed face in a mask. "It's over now, Zoe. It was as close to heaven as a man ever dares to go. But not many men are privileged to dwell in heaven while they are in this life. The great majority have to keep their feet on solid earth their whole lives. And that's where mine will be from now on."
He smiled at her-a controlled, contrived smile that held no feeling at all, and then he was gone.
She dropped back on her pillow. She had not cried since her mother's funeral, but now she sobbed until she was too weak to weep more. She knew that Link would never swerve from the straight path that he had plotted for himself, and for her. She would never again hear-words of love from him, never know his kiss on her breasts, never again feel his hardness in her softness, giving her the climax that only real love could draw from her.