Chapter 3

Amy heard the intercom buzz just as she was cleaning up her desk to leave for the day. "Yes, Ginny?" she answered.

"You've got a call," came the receptionist's metallic voice.

"Too bad," said Amy. "I'm gone for the day. It's past business hours anyway."

"Don't pack up yet, sweetie," said Ginny. "The call's from Danny Richman."

Shit, Amy thought. I've had enough of that guy for one day. What the hell could he want? She was just about to tell Ginny to take a message when she remembered that she had left Mr. Robinson very much in the dark on the Primordial .Ooze deal, and that if she were going to earn his trust and keep it, she'd damn well better follow up with the group's manager.

"All right," she sighed, setting down her briefcase. "I'll take the call."

"I thought so," Ginny chuckled.

She picked up the phone and pushed the lighted button. "Amy Barker," she said briskly.

"I know," Danny's voice came through the receiver. She could almost see him grinning into the telephone. "I've got some news for you."

"Shoot," said Amy, pencil poised over her memo pad.

"I just talked with Harry Bledsoe, the leader of the Ooze. They're willing to listen to an offer." Danny's voice was so casual and charming that Amy found herself getting excited for no real good reason.

"Good," she said. "So what's next?"

"Well," said Danny, "I really don't know what your schedule is like, but since I caught Harry in a rare reasonable mood, I went ahead and made an appointment for you to see him. Hope you don't mind."

"When?"

"Tomorrow at one o'clock. Harry's house. Is that all right?"

"Just a second," Amy said, trying to disguise her excitement by maintaining a business-like tone. "I'll have to check my calendar." She let ten seconds pass while she doodled on her memo pad. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll have to rearrange some things, but I think I can make it."

"Don't just think you can make it," Danny said. "Make it. You don't catch Harry in these negotiating moods too often, so if I were you I'd jump on it. Figuratively speaking, of course."

"Of course," Amy responded coolly.

Dan gave her the directions to Harry Bledsoe's house in Bolinas, then the two signed off with mutual assurances that they would keep in touch. "Again, figuratively speaking." Danny laughed.

Amy's mind was racing a mile a minute as she drove home to Daly City. So much had happened in one day, she felt she had to arrange her thoughts and feelings before facing her husband. First of all, she thought, there was the prospect of this deal with the Primordial Ooze, which could represent not only a coup for Robinson and Klein, but a very large personal feather in-her own cap. If she could close this deal, her future would be assured, no doubt of that. If not, she'd probably have to go on working as a glorified secretary for a long time before a similar opportunity arose.

Counterbalancing her excitement over her own prospects was the fact that she had violated Rick's trust in allowing Danny Richman to make love to her. As part and parcel of a business deal, the ethics of her act didn't bother her she knew that the business world operated like that, and she was not about to go against the grain. But she did feel slightly guilty on Rick's behalf. The poor guy was having so much trouble as it was, what with his career going downhill and his wife changing daily in front of his eyes; now she was adding fuel to the fire with the adulterous way she was conducting her business. She knew that Rick could never face that, and that ultimately she would have to choose between her marriage and her career; either that or try to maintain both through lying and hypocrisy. The conflict was so massive that she was unable to come to any decision, so she decided to act as if nothing had happened and postpone the inevitable confrontation with Rick.

She found him sitting in front of the TV set, watching re-runs of .AW in the Family. His shirt and shoes were off, and his feet were balanced on a TV tray in front of him. He barely turned around to acknowledge her as she walked in the door.

"Hi," Amy said in an artificially cheerful tone. "How'd it go today?"

"Just great," Rick said sourly. "Archie had a big fight with Meathead because Gloria signed an abortion initiative. Then Edith came in ... "

"Oh come on, Rick," Amy said, exasperated. "I don't need sarcasm at the end of the day. Come on, tell me: how was your day?"

"You want to know how my day was," Rick mused. "That's very interesting. I didn't think you'd give a damn, what with all the money you're bringing home from that pimping operation you work for."

"What is this?" Amy said, wide-eyed. "I come home, I ask a simple question, and I get sarcasm and insults. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Not a thing," her husband replied. "You asked me how my day was, I told you. As far as insults, I'm sorry you took it that way, but I was just offering a personal opinion. Maybe I'm not entitled to those anymore. Maybe you should read me my rights so I'll know where I stand. God knows I don't want to do anything to annoy you."

"Rick, please. I don't understand," Amy pleaded. "What have I done?"

"Nothing," said Rick turning back to face the TV set. "Forget it."

"That's what I'm going to have to do for the moment," Amy said. "I'm too worn out to argue.

If you feel like talking later,, fine. I'll listen."

She walked into the kitchen, leaving Rick to stare glumly as Edith Bunker took up her normal stance between Archie and Meathead. She went to the refrigerator to begin preparing dinner, but opened the door to find nothing but a six-pack of beer and a piece of moldy cheese. "Oh Jesus," she said to herself. "Now what?"

"Rick," she called out. "Didn't you get anything for dinner? There's nothing in the refrigerator."

"Yeah, I know," her husband yelled back. "And if you think that's nothing, you should look in the pantry."

Taking his cue, Amy opened the pantry door. There was nothing inside but a jar of peanut butter and two packages of Twinkies. Sighing, she closed the door and walked back into the living room.

"Rick," she said quietly, standing in the doorway, "there's nothing to eat."

"I know," he said. "I thought we'd go to dinner at Ernie's, or Le Payillion."

"You're crazy," she said. "We can't afford those places."

"No?" he said, mocking astonishment. "I thought you were closing at least two billion-dollar deals a day. What happened? Only close one today?" He looked at her angrily.

"All right, Rick," she said. "Let's talk. What's eating you?"

"Not a thing," he said, turning his gaze back to the TV screen.

Amy strode across the room and placed herself between Rick and the TV set. "Now stop it," she said. "Let's get this whole thing out in the open. You've been acting like a spoiled child for the last two weeks, and I want to know what the hell is bothering you."

"I said forget it."

"No!" Amy barked. "I won't forget it!" You're doing your best to make me miserable, and I don't think I deserve this treatment, especially when I'm working to keep this household together."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Amy realized that she'd said the wrong thing. Rick gave her a murderous stare.

"Oh, you are?" he said in a cold, even tone. "And I suppose I'm sitting home all day eating bonbons and reading Gothic novels."

"That's not what I mean," Any said, backing down a little. "I just meant that right now while things are a little down for you, the money I'm bringing home is helping out, that's all."

"Things are not temporarily down for me!" Rick yelled. "It's the season. Nobody builds in the wintertime, or haven't you noticed? We're still doing all right on what I made last summer."

"Rick," Amy said, "I don't mean to contradict you, but that money was gone by November."

"All right, all right," he said. "But I'm working on a deal that'll more than make up for the in-between times. A government contract to build a new post office in Martinez ... or is it Concord?"

"Now we're on the right track," Amy smiled. "That's what I wanted to know when I came in. How's that deal going? Any progress?"

"Sure there's progress," Rick said bitterly. "The government sits on its thumbs, the town fathers of Martinez or Concord or wherever sit on their thumbs, and here I am with Edith and Archie." He passed his hands in front of his eyes. "I tell you, its so goddamned frustrating ... "

"I know, baby," Amy said, walking across the room and kneeling in front of her husband where he sat. "I know it's tough, and I know you're doing your best. But we have to eat, you know? That's the only reason I took this job, to tide us over until things started to break for you."

"Does that mean you'll quit when I start bringing in some money again?" he said, looking at her almost imploringly.

"Well ... " she said, looking away.

"See?" Rick exploded. "That's what I mean. You give me all this shit about how you're just trying to help out, but the truth is that you want to work. You aren't going to quit, even if I start bringing home a hundred grand a month."

"But why is it so important to you that I quit? I mean, I just started."

"I don't know why it's important," he said, sitting back in his chair again. "I just know that it is."

"Well," she said, trying to keep her voice gentle and under control, "if you don't know why it's important, I do. It's important to you because you want to be the guy who holds the purse strings. That way you can keep me under your control, by making me have to come to you for money."

"You think so?" he said.

"I know so. Otherwise why would you be so upset about my working? It can't be just pride."

"Why can't it?"

"All right, maybe it is. So if that's true, all you're worried about is that my bringing in the money makes you less of a man. Right?"

Rick said nothing.

"Aw, baby," she said, coming over to his chair and giving him an embrace,"how could you ever be worried about a thing like that? You'll always be a man, no matter what happens. Nothing can change it. Not only that, but you'll always be my man. Now come on." She gave him a motherly kiss.

"I'm going to take a bath," he said. He got up from his chair, gave Amy a sheepish look, and walked toward the bathroom.

Amy sat down in the chair Rick had been occupying and gave out a long sigh. Somehow everything she did was making her feel cheaper despite what she had said to Rick, she couldn't deny to herself that her new self-confidence, all derived from the job with Robinson and Klein, was changing their relationship drastically. She had no idea how much longer she would be able to keep up the charade, but she was determined now to try, at least until Rick's fortunes changed and he recovered his self-esteem; not until then would she make a real evaluation of their marriage. For now she would go on supporting him and doing her best to cheer him up.

She went into the bedroom, and taking off her shoes and dress, she sat down to wait for her husband.

Wordlessly, Rick wandered in from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his hips. He flopped wearily, face down on the bed. Sliding over until her hips pressed against his, Amy twisted and began kneading the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck.

Rick grunted appreciatively as her strong yet graceful fingers prodded and squeezed his souring flesh. After working his shoulders over from the center outward, Amy began to draw her hands along his back. Her hands were dwarfed by the expanse of flesh, making her task look almost endless. At the small of his back. Amy was forced to turn awkwardly around. She got to her knees, then straddled Rick's thighs. She tugged at the towel until it came free, unwrapped his hips, and exposed his hard white muscular ass. With the same easy motion he had used on his back, she kneaded his buttocks, her thumbs probing into the hairy crack between them. Then she worked her way down his thighs, finally finishing by rubbing his hairy calves between her palms.

Unstraddling him, she moved up next to his shoulders, hooked her hands under one of them and pulled. Rick neither resisted nor helped her. It took a huge effort on her part before she got him flopped over on his back.

She noticed out of the corner of her eye that his cock was half-erect. She swallowed tightly. She wasn't horny, not after Danny Richman. But she knew what the rubdown was inexorably leading to. It always did. She knew she couldn't break the pattern.

After arranging Rick's arms out to his sides, as if he were being crucified, she straddled his hard, flat stomach. She massaged the sides of his neck with the tips of her fingers, then bent down and gave him a gentle, tender kiss. His torso felt warm and sturdy between her thighs and under her buttocks. She gripped his flanks with her knees as if she were riding a horse.

Finished with his neck, she proceeded down to his pectoral muscles. As she worked her way down from them, she slid her ass lower on his body. She felt his cock jab her in the rear and lifted, then lowered herself onto it. It lay up against his belly, hard and stiff in the crack of her ass.

As she massaged the muscles of Rick's solar plexus, he reached up and unbuttoned her blouse. Then he spread it open to bare the graceful, firm, pink-tipped mounds of her breasts. His big hands formed a living bra for them, pressing them against her ribs, kneading and squeezing them.

Amy felt the crotch of her panties get suddenly wet where it was stretched tight across her pussy. She broke off her massage long enough to shed the blouse, dropping it off to one side of the bed. Then she sat up straight, her hands on her bare thighs. Her spine was straight, her shoulders back the graceful, controlled posture of a dancer.

Rick's eyes filled. She looked like she was just past puberty: small, firm, pert breasts with tiny, excited nipples. He slid his hands up from her waist until his thumbs swept over the mounds of her breasts and scrubbed her sharp, pink tits.

"You still have your panties on," he informed her.

"I'm not done yet," she said softly. "Oh?"

"When I give a rundown," she started, "I give a rubdown."

"Do all your customers get such personal attention?" Rick asked, smiling.

Amy flinched. "Certainly not!" she snapped in mock outrage. "Only the big guys." She rolled his cock against her tight bottom.

Rick chuckled and pushed his hips up slightly against her weight. He continued his tactile study of her tender, nubile breasts.

Amy was bubbling with excitement from his touch and the feel of his cock trapped under her ass.

"If you will unhand me, sir, I'll continue the massage," she commented at last.

Reluctantly, Rick released her breasts. Before letting go, his thumbs and fingers tugged gently at her nipples.

Amy slid lower on her husband. Looking down, she watched his cock peek out from under her. She remembered Danny Richman's cock, then tried to put it out of her mind. Danny's cock wasn't as long as Rick's, but was bigger around when erect. Amy bit her lip. Rick's innocent comment had gotten to her. If she wasn't careful, she was bound to give her infidelity away, and that was something she had already resolved would never happen.

She dug her thumbs into Rick's belly, then massaged lower and lower, letting her hands follow the line where his thighs joined his body, an arrowhead that ended in his groin. Rick's stomach muscles quivered and convulsed from the touch of her hands so close to his genitals.

Amy slid her thumbs down between his thighs, under his balls, and lifted them gently. She rolled them on her fingers, watching the way the heavy ovoids shifted in their sac. Then, laying his sex glands between his thighs, she stroked her thumbs up the length of his cock. She felt it swell and quiver from the delicate, tantalizing stimulation.

Rick was aware of the pressure of Amy's ass on his legs, the way her thighs and knees were gripping his. He was watching the way her breasts shifted and quivered as she leaned over him, her arms pressing against the sides of her boobs to make the valley between them deeper and more exciting. The feathery touch of her thumbs endlessly stroking the length of his cock from base to tip, seemed to draw blood from every part of his body to the already-bloated organ. He felt a stinging wave of fire as his glands produced a flood of lubricant. It oozed the length of the channel of his prick. Then Amy deliberately smeared the liquid over his phallus. It made her thumbs slippery, changed the feel of her stroking, made it even more wildly sensuous.

Amy wriggled her ass lower and leaned farther forward over Rick's groin. The tight crotch of her pants felt chill and sticky from her own excitement. But she wasn't going to take his cock in her vagina. Her conscience told her that she didn't deserve that joy after what she had done with Richman. Instead, she would concentrate on giving Rick all the pleasure she knew how.

She lifted his cock with her fingers and lowered her head to it. The tips of her breasts brushed his big thighs as she neared her goal. She opened her lips, carefully wrapped them around the head of his cock, and drew her head upwards, letting his prick slide from her pursed lips.

She immediately lowered her head again and took his cock further into her mouth. She added the stimulation of her wet, hungry tongue this time. Her mouth was filled with the salty taste of his lewdly dripping fluids, and her nose engulfed in the musky, titillating smell of sex.

She bobbed her head, taking more and more of the hot, heavy tower of flesh into her slavering mouth, pressing and massaging its throbbing length with her avaricious tongue. She scrubbed the hot tips of her fiery breasts against Rick's hairy thighs. Her erect nipples burned with lust. She clutched his legs tightly between her scissoring thighs, loving the feel of his strong, hot flesh against her tender skin.

Her eyes closed as she sucked and sucked and sucked her husband's cock, taking the pulsing mass in as deeply as she could without gagging. With her hands she stimulated the excited underbase, the part of his immense rod that she couldn't get into her greedy mouth, matching the stroking of her fingers to the abandoned shaking of her head, tugging and stretching the loose skin over the hard inner core of his burning phallus.

Rick's entire being was being focused on the feel of Amy's sweet young mouth massaging his erect prick. Her tongue was a velvet mass pressing and scrubbing the most sensitive spot on the underside of his lust-hardened prick, making his groin burn and ache with desire. Her lips, a hot, wet, ring around his pulsating shaft. were excitingly different from a vaginal embrace. And the way she pulled and stretched the excited skin of his cock near the base, with her practiced fingers, gave the impression she had taken the entire towering organ down her throat.

Streams of fire seemed to be pouring through Rick's body, funneling straight to his groin to form a simmering pool of lewd passion. From time to time he lifted his head and looked down the length of his body. He loved seeing Amy's beautiful face spitted on his stabbing cock, loved to watch her hungrily devour his throbbing organ.

Amy's own guts were burning up with unfulfilled lust. She truly loved sucking Rick's cock, even though it left her own dripping vagina empty and hungry. And this time her lack of fulfillment seemed only just in view of her infidelity earlier that day.

She took another fraction of Rick's cock in her mouth, all the way to the back of her devouring tongue. Then she slid the fingers of one hand down under his lust-swollen balls and lifted them gently. She scratched high on the underside of his sensitive scrotum, tickled the hot pocket between his thighs.

She felt his testicles drawing up toward his body. She thought of cannon balls drawing near the breech of a big gun, knew they were getting ready to unload their burden down the barrel of Rick's enormous cock.

Rick's hips were heaving now, thrusting his passion-maddened cock at his wife's face, jamming it into her warm wet throat. He tried to hold back, to keep her from forcing his phallus too deeply into her mouth, knowing it would make her gag if he did. She helped restrain his thrusting hips by pinning his thighs down with her warm, soft torso. He could feel her tits, hard, burning knots, digging into the excited flesh of his thighs.

Amy matched the bobbing of her head to the flexing of Rick's passion-maddened hips. She took as much of his throbbing cock in her mouth as she dared as much as experience had taught her she could without choking. As the violence of Rick's heaving increased, Amy sped up the movements of her head.

He thrust abandonedly upward, and simultaneously Amy pushed her hungry mouth downward. With the fingers of one hand she tugged gently at the saliva-coated skin of his pulsating rod of flesh. With the" fingers of the other hand she pressed against the hard vibrating ridge behind his balls. She felt the heated ridge tremble, felt the semen rush the length of his hardened prick.

A heavy wad of viscous come squirted from the tip of his excited phallus into the depths of her hungry throat, making her swallow reflexively. She began sucking and swallowing frantically as wave after wave of sticky white semen spasmed into her waiting mouth. She felt each hot gob of fluid pour down into her belly to form a warm, muscle-knotting pool in her stomach, which she had never let it do before. Always in the past she had let his cock spurt into empty air, or she had taken his semen in her mouth and then spat it out. This time she was swallowing it as a penance for what she had down with Danny Richman.

She found she enjoyed it, enjoyed ingesting the thick, creamy liquid. The massaging and squirming of her tongue as she swallowed kept his coming going on and on and on, until at last his satisfied prick was pumping dryly into her mouth, its reserves of jism exhausted. Slowly, the convulsing died away and the once-hard organ between her teeth began to shrivel and soften.

Amy spat it out, then laid her head down, Rick's wiry pubic hair brushing her cheek, the come and saliva-coated mass of his prick against her ear. She lay there for a long time until the last hungry convulsions of her empty vagina died away. She had had an orgasm in spite of herself.

Later, as she was cooking dinner, Amy tried to take stock of her feelings. The first thing that occurred to her was that she hadn't given much thought to anything she had done that day she had just acted on instinct, actually had let instinct control her. That was bad, she knew; bad in everyday life and especially bad in business. One should always be aware of one's motives, she thought. And more important, one should always have motives for what one did, not just act because the body demanded it. She knew there was nothing she could do about what had already happened that day, but she thought that if she applied a little hindsight she might be able to control herself better in the future, or at least make appropriate decisions.

Appropriate decisions, she laughed to herself. Now what decision did I make today? I didn't really decide anything, did I? I saw a handsome guy and let. him make love to me, then did the same thing with Rick, but in that case only out of force of habit. Or was that necessarily true? Even if it were only for the briefest moment, hadn't she thought before she lay down on the carpet with Danny? Hadn't she quickly tabulated the possible benefits to their business deal, to Mr. Robinson's opinion of her, and to her own career? Yes, she decided, even if she hadn't taken much time in her calculations, hadn't taken everything into consideration, she had definitely had her reasons, reasons of which she had been completely aware.

And the same thing was true with Rick. Although her motives might have been different with Rick she was only trying to cement her marriage, whereas Danny had been cement for her new business career she still had thought about it before she had gone to bed with him. She had quickly weighed the advantages of making Rick think that everything was still all right between them, along with the disadvantages of being honest, and had decided that for the moment, at least, hypocrisy was preferable.

All right, she wondered, does that mean I'm losing my morals? Probably so. Is that bad? Maybe and maybe not. She considered what a lifetime of absolute morality had gotten her: a house in Daly City, a demanding husband, and an infinity of dirty dishes to wash. It was only when she had started to break out of that mold although there certainly wasn't anything immoral about taking a job, except maybe from Rick's point of view that she had begun to realize that the world had a great deal more to offer than television and weekend bridge games with the girls. And it was only today, when she had made that little decision to step outside the bounds of morality to get what she wanted, that her career had begun to take off.

Her thoughts began to drift as she absently stirred the pea soup. Yes, she figured, her career would definitely move by leaps and bounds if she could close this deal with the Primordial Ooze. If the rest of the package was no less unpleasant than today's dealing with Danny Richman, she could well afford to soft-pedal her morals a bit to bring about what obviously would amount to a tremendous coup. And what was this business about "Less unpleasant?" Who was she kidding? That little session with Danny Richman had been very pleasant indeed, and the only thing that had interfered with her pleasure were her misplaced guilt feelings where Rick was concerned. Actually, she hoped to get the opportunity to deal with Danny again, and she knew that she would so long as things went all right with this Harry Bledsoe.

A pungent odor wafted up from the stove, interrupting Amy's musing. She looked down to see a horrible blackened mass where once there had been pea soup.

"Hmmm," she said, chuckling to herself. "Must be symbolic."