Chapter 1
My wife was a sad, ugly dog, and I had absolutely no intentions of staying faithful to her. Or anyone else. Nine years older than me-thirty-Barbara was a stick-thin, sallow-faced woman-the kind of shy, gentle old maid that one expects to see forever sauntering around in a prim rose garden and coughing with consumption. She was a frail heroine right out of the pages of a Louisa May Alcott hearts-and-flowers tear-jerker. And I wanted to marry her; I had to marry her! And for a reason easily explainable and as old as the hills for a devil-may-care, unscrupulous and poor bachelor like me who believed in nothing but the easy life without lifting a single one of his own fingers to work for it. Marrying Barbara, I wouldn't have to move a muscle except one, I thought. Life would indeed be a bowl of ripe cherries because she had inherited three million bucks which would become community property after the meaningless, at least to me, marriage ceremony. It was pure and simple ... greed for the comfortable, life-long gravy train.
When Barbara accepted my altar-bound proposal, I had to laugh to myself for I thought I heard cosmic weeping, wailing, and cursing. Refus Dodge, her late bear-cat father, was a cold, ruthless, domineering prototype of the rock hard-headed businessman whose only reason for living was to make millions with his Ohio paper mills, at all costs to his personal image in the community. Refus never gave a hoot in hell that he was loathed-despicable shenanigans and heartless brow-beatings were his daily bread to administer to anyone who crossed him or worked for him. But his non-unionized, slave-labor employees had their revenge one afternoon when, after firing three secretaries for taking a forbidden coffee break, his terrible temper-tantrum anger struck him down with a fatal stroke, and he died almost immediately and easily which most people thought was a God-awful shame that he didn't linger long enough to suffer in paralyzed, silent agony.
After his burial, which was sparcely attended, I went after Barbara with the slow but sure calculation that she had always been compellingly interested in me as a lover-husband. Now that her father had finally dropped dead I wanted to rush to make up for the lost time and wasted years I had spent in Hick Town, Ohio, working as a life-guard at the Country Club swimming pool and outlasting Refus Dodge with sheer determination to get my hands on his money. But I knew, with the canny instincts of a certain kind of hustler, that I would have to give Barbara time to get over her grief because her father was all the family she had since her mother died of cancer when she was five. But I was happily mistaken-Barbara's shock lasted three days, through the reading of the will, and then she instantly broke the tyrannical ties that Refus had tightly bound her with all her life-and we were married in the judge's chambers at the court house one week, to the very day, after the funeral! I was certain that her father was spinning up a real dust-storm in his hell-fire grave. I couldn't have been more tickled pink-and Barbara, I knew, really couldn't have cared less about anyone in the past when we were on our non-stop, jet-way to the honeymoon in Florida.
Mr. and Mrs. Steve and Barbara Reynolds checked into the lavishly expensive bridal suite ' at the Breakers Hotel in Fort Lauderdale exactly five hours after we had been married in the midst of a January swirling snow blizzard back in Ohio, and the bell-hop had scarcely shut the door behind him on his way out when Barbara suggested a quick dip in the hotel pool. Naturally I was a bit taken aback that she wanted to get back out of the honeymoon nest so quickly. It was against bridal protocol to be so ... so sexually callous! Especially for a thirty-year-old, sex-starved virgin! But I supposed that she was just virgin-nervous, although she wouldn't admit or show it. Instead, she rationalized swimming as her favorite pastime and desire of the moment-a lark, as she put it, after coming from a bleak blizzard to sub-tropical heat in a little less than two hours. And this was explained to me from behind the closed door of the bathroom where she casually disappeared to shyly and modestly change into her swim suit!
As for myself, I easily shrugged all this off. If Barbara wanted to play virginal games for a while longer it was perfectly all right with me. Because then, when the time came to take her, and the way I would finally take her, with power and violence, I wouldn't have to completely affect a madness for her skinny body. Oh, no ... just looking at the usual other girls around the swimming pool in their brief bikinis would compel my sane-disgust of Barbara's body to explode. Not that otherwise I wouldn't be able to easily fake it-and it would, too, be more than the money that would keep my always starving strength up. I belonged to that rather rare breed ... born for no other purpose than to manufacture that good old hot stuff, and there was always plenty to go around-praise the glorious gods from whom all such blessings flow, and flow!
After nearly two hours in the pool and the sun, I thought it was high time for Barbara to come to worship and drink deeply from my marathon communion-cup of sweet good cheer. So immediately when we returned to the bridal suite in our sun-dried swim suits, I took a deep breath and kissed my wife boldly on her thin lips. And instantly her body tensed incredibly.
"I love you, Barbara," I said, affecting a husky whisper of sincerity. "So relax. There's nothing to be scared about. I'm not going to hurt you for the whole wide world."
"Oh ... well...." she stammered as her hands couldn't decide where to go without touching me at either side, "I-I know that...."
"It's true," I reaffirmed, reaching for her halter strap, pulling it off with one quick sweep of my arm, and she was naked to the waist. Her breasts were as small as shriveled oranges, but I began to suck on her nipples. I knew that felt good to her. But to me-the tiny tips were like two underdeveloped peach-pits. Nevertheless, I nibbled them to stiffness. It's a truism that something is better than nothing, in a hot moment's pinch. And all the while my hands were exploring, tuning her in to the preliminaries of exotica, and then I finally unzipped her swim suit bottom and slid it down to her feet.
All the time Barbara just stood there, her arms limply down at either side of her, in a dead-motionless position of ... of complete surrender? Or dry-mouth fear? I really wasn't sure. And it didn't make any particular difference to me, either. I only wanted relief now-the pool side beauties had boiled my juices-and I would have it, quickly!
Barbara was now kneeling before me on her knees, her eyes levelled unblinkingly at me. Then suddenly her nervous fingers hooked into the elastic waistband of my flimsy briefs, and pulled them off in one sweep of her arm. Barbara gasped and stared, frozen in delirious disbelief, I knew. Women always reacted this way at the first real sight of me.
Slowly I jutted out my hips, and then abruptly Barbara nearly lost her mind. As all the others had since the day I got out of diapers, practically-and many, many more would again, after this. Not that I'm registering any complaint. On the contrary, this was the absolute epitome of Seventh Heaven bliss!
"Oh, yes, God, yes! Just like that, Barbara! That really feels tremendous! And I want you to ... oh, yes, darling! That's so sweet down there, huh?"
Reaching down then, while Barbara still wetly concentrated on the intense intimacy that, for the moment, was the focus of all her desire, I gave in to my most compelling urge. Slowly, tenderly, I reached down between her legs, touching her with an exploratory forefinger in a fashion that quickly had her squirming and moaning. And then....
Barbara stumbled back and stood up quickly. I blinked and faced her, flabbergasted!
"Darling! What's wrong?"
"Y-you!" she stammered, her face suddenly as white as a sheet of bond paper. "You-you want to kill me! Please-please don't...!"
I caught my breath. "Barbara! What are you talking about? Tell me-"
"Y-you want to ... to bury that m-mon-strosity!" she blurted at last. "You want to put that ... out of sight! D-don't you?"
"Well ... I ... that's what it's for, you know."
"Yes, I know!" Barbara snapped furiously. "But ... I didn't know until now ... I mean, I-I thought ... it was mostly a lot of padding!"
"Oh, Jesus," I said. I had to laugh. "Jesus, Jesus. When will you women ever learn?"
Barbara snapped, "But this wasn't fair of you, Steve! Particularly you ... with that ... you should have warned me."
"Now, Barbara ... now darling! There's no escaping the initial pain, granted. But it'll only last a few seconds, and in those seconds-"
"I'll die!"
"Barbara, this isn't a matter of life and death at all," I said firmly. "Once we go to bed ... once you take me nice and slow and easy ... everything in life, and marriage in particular, requires a little period of adjustment! But it's inevitable for practice to make perfect ... I guarantee it!"
Barbara shook her head stubbornly. "No, it's not true! You'd tear me apart!"
"Darling! Believe me, the agony will become the sweetness of pure pleasure!"
"LIAR! SAVAGE! LYING SAVAGE MONSTER!" Barbara whirled around, ran into the bathroom, slammed the door behind her-and locked it securely.
I tried to get to her. "Barbara, please ... you're just scared. That's obvious ... and natural! A honeymoon is hell ... but only until you give away your virgin's problems and pain to conventional instinct!"
"Listen to me!" Barbara hissed, breathlessly, from behind the still locked door. "I'm going back home, Steve ... on the very next jet out of here ... this afternoon! And I'm going alone, too ... and I'm also going to get an annulment from you ... first thing tomorrow morning!"
I swayed. "T-that's crazy talk!"
"Well ... you'd better believe it!" Barbara insisted. "You deceived me, Steve! And no judge or jury would ever conceivably expect a marriage to be consumated with you ... even if it was a harem of Amazons!"
"Barbara! Please-please-" I pleaded, visions of three million bucks going down the drain dancing in my head and before my very eyes.
After a solid hour of cajoling and arguing-I gave up. Dejected to the utter depths of despair, I began to get dressed, to get ready to leave. Months and years of waiting had all been in vain! I slammed my fist against the bathroom door. Barbara made no answer. I returned to finish dressing. I didn't have to fish for clothes! I hadn't even unpacked!
At last I said, "Good-bye, Barbara. And thanks a whole damned lot ... for nothing!"
"Steve!"
"W-what?"
Barbara made a soft sound, then sniffed her nose. "I do love you, Steve ... but I know I can't possibly take you in a marriage. You're too ... too much! W-where are you going now? Steve, tell me where you will go now?"
"I'm going to ... to live it up! That's all I know. Maybe I'll stay right here, in Lauderdale. Maybe I'll become a beach bum, or maybe I'll life-guard again for a while. Who knows? But I want to tell you something that I do know for certain ... I'll have sexual success, no matter where I go! I learned a long time ago that I generate spontaneous passion in all women; I'm lusty-looking and lusted-after. So no apologies necessary, Barbara. Where there is lust there can be desire-but hardly ever love. So don't kid me or yourself any more. I'll get along, somehow, and you'll get over me-in a couple of days, I imagine. In other words ... wherever I go now, I'm going to live it up sexually shamelessly to the hilt, and I suggest that you don't fret a bit about me."
Barbara seemingly ignored all this. She said, "In my purse, in the top left dresser drawer ... there's five hundred dollars in cash. Take it, Steve ... leaving me fifty dollars to get home on from the Cleveland airport."
My temper flared up again. "You know, Barbara ... I really shouldn't agree to an annulment!"
"Oh, Steve ... you really have no other choice! My father's name still swings a great big stick with lawyers and judges ... over most of the country!"
I nodded to myself. "Yeah ... isn't that a bitch?"
I rummaged through Barbara's purse-and took the entire five hundred bucks. Let her worry about how to get home from the airport, let her borrow the money, I decided, if her God damned family name meant so much. I pocketed my round-trip, first-class, champagne-flight jet ticket, too; I'd turn it into the airlines for a refund. Every little bit would help and probably come in plenty handy. It was a time for greediness. I had to be greedy, I told myself firmly, after everything just went up in a quick puff of smoke. This wasn't a time for honesty, sympathy, or regrets.
Then I picked up my suitcase, strode to the door, and slammed it behind me. I continued striding down the hotel hallway, directly toward the elevator, and punched the button impatiently. I had to wait.
I heard the hotel room door open behind me, but I ignored it until the voice purred, "What's your hurry?" Then I turned around, and grinned sheepishly....
At a slender, big-boobed girl in a patch-Madras brief bikini.