Chapter 1
JANICE KIRBY kept looking at Al, her rainy-Sunday restlessness increasing and taking on a different form. This husband of hers was a handsome and virile man. He retained, at thirty-four, a boyish charm. Al looked sexy-at least to her. She could become excited, aroused, just by looking at him. He affected her so now.
She asked, "Al, would you like to make love to me?"
"Not particularly."
He did not look up from his Sunday paper.
"Oh, but you're lazy."
"I'm still recuperating," he countered.
Janice was reminded that last night's session had been a good one. She and Al had been to a party, had a lot of fun, come home a little high. They had tumbled into bed and made love like honeymooners rather than like two people married for three whole years. Remembering, Janice felt her excitement grow. She simply had to get Al to go to bed with her-now, at mid-afternoon.
She was seated cross-legged on the floor, sections of the Sunday newspaper strewn untidily about her. She wore black capri pants and a green nylon blouse-nothing else, not even make-up. She felt pleasantly hung over-restless, yet unenergetic. Merely basically alive. The day outside the apartment windows matched her mood. The afternoon was cheerlessly gray and dripping wet.
She regarded her husband from eyes narrowed in speculation. Al was not actually much as husbands went. She had had to keep working after marrying him. He was a used-car salesman just now-the job did not pay much. His jobs never did. He always talked about finding something else, whatever he happened to be doing for a living. He was forever changing jobs and was-Janice suspected-by nature a floater. She had begun to accept the fact that she and Al would never have many of the good things of fife-home in the suburbs, this year's model car-maybe they would not even have children. Al simply was no provider. But he was a skillful lover and she supposed she loved him. At any rate, her great need for his physical love permitted her to overlook his many failings.
Still engrossed in the newspaper, Al said, "Here's something-a wife-swapping scandal out in California. One of the wives got fed up and spilled the beans to the district attorney. She's quoted as saying in an interview," 'My husband insisted that I take part in such activities, so we wouldn't be dropped by new friends we made after moving into the neighborhood. These people had formed a club for immoral purposes. Seven couples belonged to it. The couples took turns throwing parties on Saturday nights, and during each party there was a shuffling of mates. Wives were swapped in various ways. One way was for the men to place their car keys in a container and for each woman to draw a key. If a woman drew her husband's key, she put it back and drew again-so she was teamed off with another partner.'"
Al looked up, grinning. "A real fun game, that. We should have some friends like that bunch."
"It's shocking," Janice said. "Swapping wives-husbands-I can't imagine what kind of people would do such a thing."
"According to the paper-the husbands were professional and business executives. So you might say they were among our better citizens."
"Were' is right. And better than what? Savages?"
"Oh, come off it, Jan," Al said, chuckling. "You're not such a prude that you can't admit it might be fun."
Janice realized that Al was titillated by the idea of wife-swapping. She was now truly annoyed with him-no longer merely critical.
"You wouldn't swap me to anybody," she said. "You'd never involve me in such a thing. Anyway, I'm all the woman you need." Abruptly she decided her annoyance was foolish-he had to be joking. She asked archly, "Did you say you did want to make love to me?"
"What's with you? You got an itch?"
"Don't you know what a rainy Sunday afternoon is for, dope?"
"I know what you think it's for."
"Then do your husbandly duty."
"Tonight," Al said. "When I've gotten back my strength."
Making a face at him, she said, "Maybe I should do some husband-swapping-since you're so easily beat. For all you know, I could. I might have an admirer who would jump at the chance to be nice to me."
"Who is he?" Al said. "I'll bust him one."
Al would not. He had no jealousy in him. Extremely vain, constantly aware of his dark good looks, he was sure of himself-and of her. That he was fortunate in having as lovely and tolerant a wife as Janice never occurred to him. Egoist that he was, he took it as his due that he should have married a woman who was not only attractive but able and willing to help pay his living expenses. If she had been able to support him in idleness, she knew, he would have let her.
She did not especially mind his good opinion of himself. But at times she felt a little rebellious for his taking her so much for granted. Right now, she thought, he should be just a tiny bit jealous. After all, she might have an admirer. Studying Al, she decided to invent one-in an attempt to jolt his complacency.
"How would you feel if I told you Jay Bolton, no less, made a pass at me?" she asked. "President of the company."
"No kidding? How'd you get to know him?"
"I told you the other day that I was sent from the stenographers' pool to take his secretary's place while she's on vacation. If you'd listen to me just once-"
"I listened. I just forgot."
She did not believe him-but let it pass.
"I spent Friday afternoon with Miss Forsythe, his girl Friday, learning the ropes," she said, watching Al closely. "Mr. Bolton called me into his office before quitting time and said he was sure I'd do as his secretary for the next three weeks." That much was the truth. What Janice added was not. "He also said he didn't know that the company had such attractive girls in its stenographers' pool."
Al did not react as she had hoped.
He merely asked incredulously, "You call that a pass? And what a corny fine. The guy must be a real square."
"It wasn't so much what he said," Janice went on, defending her he, sorry she had not come up with something stronger. "It was the way he stared-as though I looked good enough to eat."
Grinning, Al said, "Well, at least he has good taste in dames. You do look good enough to eat." He dropped his part of the newspaper to the floor, patted his knees. "Come to papa, baby."
Janice frowned, feeling a renewed stir of annoyance. Al was reacting-but not jealously. He seemed aroused by the thought of another man's admiring her. She knew a new wonder about him. Maybe it would give him kicks if she gave herself to someone else. Maybe he would get a charge out of infidelity on her part. She knew an impulse not to go to him now-but to refuse what she had asked for would be spiting herself. As always, she must take this man of hers as he was-make the best of an imperfect bargain.
She got to her feet and moved slowly, sensuously, toward him. She made her hips undulate exaggeratedly, swung her shoulders so that her breasts swayed in the green nylon blouse. Al appreciated her gagging up her physical endowments. She was a lushly built young woman, a honey blonde with silver-gray eyes. Her complexion was as flawless as her figure. Unbuttoning her blouse, she exposed a firm, full bosom.
Pulling her onto his lap, Al said, "You do have an itch, don't you, sweetheart?"
"I want you, Al," she said, her anger dissolving. "I need you."
He touched her breasts and she felt an erectility in them. Her abdomen tingled. She took his face between her hands, pressed her lips-warm, moist, parted-to his. He smelled like a man-of beer, tobacco and after-shave lotion. Excitement soared in her. She kept her mouth locked to his, probing with her tongue.
"All right, you," he said when he managed to free himself. "We'll make love now. But don't expect to again at bedtime."
Pleased with her small victory, she laughed. "What are you doing, rationing me?"
"Yeah. For my own well being."
"I won't put up with it."
"No? What will you do?"
"Swap you for another woman's husband."
"That Jay Bolton character?"
"Could be," she said and squirmed with pleasure as he fondled her breasts with increasing roughness. Al was not a gentle lover.
"You could go for him, eh?"
Janice had never given intimacy with Jay Bolton the slightest thought. Bolton was simply the man whose secretary she was to be for the next three weeks. She had not considered him as a male. She had the amused thought that Bolton would be shocked if he knew how she and Al were discussing him.
But she wanted to test out her new theory about Al. She asked, "Would it make you sore if I said I could?"
"Not if it would do you some good."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well-playing games with the boss should get you a better job," Al said. "You shouldn't have to stay in the stenographers' pool once you've worked after hours."
"Oh, you louse, Al Kirby," Janice said. "You wouldn't give a darn if I slept around every night in the week."
"Sure, I would," he said, pushing her off his lap. "Doing it for a better job is one thing, for kicks, another."
He slapped her on the bottom, got to his feet, followed her into their bedroom. He began to undress. She opened the bed and slipped off the green blouse. Though eager for the pleasure to come, she took time to hang the blouse in the closet. She had always been meticulous. Her bared breasts jutted, bell-shaped-firm yet soft mounds, prettily pink-tipped. They were lovely and she was aware of it.
Al said, "No doubt about it, sweetheart, you do look good enough to eat. Old Bolton would be a pushover for you."
"He's not so old."
"Fifty, maybe?"
"Forty, more like it."
"Handsome?"
Janice had to think about that. She had not considered what Jay Bolton really looked like-beyond being personable.
"Yes, he is," she decided.
"I've seen his wife's picture in the tabloids a couple of times. Once in a bikini. She's something. Tough competition-even for a doll like you."
"Maybe she wouldn't be at all," Janice said, now caught up in a spirit of deviltry. "Miss Forsythe told me that the Boltons are estranged. Informally separated, she called it. Alice Bolton moved into an apartment of her own about a year ago. She also does a lot of traveling-without her husband. The jet set is her crowd. I won't worry about her as competition-if I decide to do some work after hours."
She slipped off the capris, put them away in the closet, then turned toward the bed. Her breasts were not her only good feature. She was narrow of waist, flat of stomach, flaring of hips. Her legs were long and shapely, tapering from full, velvety smooth thighs to well-formed calves, slender ankles. Her movements were almost feline as she went to her man, now nude upon the bed. Her silver-gray eyes glowed.
"You're a beast," she said, kneeling on the bed and bending over him. "You get a kick out of thinking I might play around."
He laughed, pulled her down to him. Their bodies entwined. They were healthy, young, ideally mated. Their acts of prelude to the ultimate embrace were prolonged, erotic and uninhibited.
Al finally broke a long silence. "You think the guy would really go for you?"
"What guy?" Janice asked.
She had not been thinking-simply feeling.
"Bolton."
"Oh, him. Al, I was just trying to make you jealous. All he said was that he thought I'd do fine as his secretary while Miss Forsythe was away."
"He didn't give you the eye?"
"No."
"You could make him-a babe like you."
"Oh?" she said, kissing Al. "Why should I?"
"To get a decent job." Al was serious. He had stopped caressing her. "A dame with a hold on a guy like that could make a career for herself. Doesn't the outfit use women executives?"
Janice said that it did. The company manufactured cosmetics and did have a number of women in high positions. One vice-president was a woman. But Janice could not imagine herself as an executive. A secretary, yes, but nothing more important. She knew her limitations. Nor was she interested in her job at this moment. She wanted to make love.
"A man like Jay Bolton probably keeps a pretty classy harem," she said. "He wouldn't notice a girl from the stenographers' pool if she stripped down in front of him." She writhed in Al's arms. "Don't talk so much. You'll break the spell."
Al ignored the warning. "Maybe he wouldn't notice just any dame from the stenographers' pool," he said. "But you, baby-all you'd have to do is let the guy know that you're available."
With that, he did stop talking. He rolled Janice under him and took his place in her arms. His possession of her was rough-it caused her to gasp. But in a moment she was purring like a kitten. Tightening her arms about him, she moved with him and gave herself up to soaring sensation.
They were perfectly attuned to each other. Al was able to gauge her responses perfectly-he was superb as a lover. She let herself be carried aloft-whether by his skill or passion she did not care. She was stormily, utterly content and loved him now fiercely despite his faults.
The day outside continued to be dreary. In Janice's bedroom-it was a fine Sunday afternoon.