Chapter 11
Silence prevailed between Don and Cass as the rented car sped toward Blair. Often, Don glanced at her, hoping to find some sign-something-anything-that would convey what she felt, what she thought, her reaction to the previous night, and, especially to him. But there was nothing. Not for a very long time. And when Cass did at last speak, her feelings still remained a mystery, her words merely those of inquiry.
"Are you glad we're through?" she asked.
"With the interviewing?"
"Yes, of course."
"I'm very glad it's all over," he said.
Cass grew silent again. She turned a bit and slumped deeper in the seat next to Don. He glanced at her. She looked none the worse for the experience of the previous evening. She looked as beautiful as any woman, Don had ever seen. And as sexual, too. Her light spring frock was cut rather low in front and the smooth slope of one breast was clearly discernable to Don. He looked at her, at the partly exposed breast, and thought how much more sexual it was than the last evening's total nude view of her. And again he felt the blame for what had happened to Cass. It had kept him awake most of the previous night, it bothered him still. It was he, and his early promiscuity with the teenaged girl Lisa, that had caused Cass the pain and shame and anguish she had suffered at the hands of the steaming boy.
Don slowed the car as he approached a crossroad, then he slowed even more when he saw that the dirt road led to the lake, to the great expanse of water that they would follow the remainder of the way to Blair. Don turned the car down the road, then speeded it, heading straight for the lake. Where the road ended at the beginning of the golden, sandy beach, Don brought the car to a halt, then slowly edged it to the side and within the concealment of a group of large, over-hanging trees. He shut off the ignition. Then he breathed deeply, turned, and looked at Cass.
She pushed upright in her seat. She looked at the lake, at the dark shadows within which they nested, and finally at Don. She smiled. She did not question the detour he had taken from the main road.
"It's beautiful here," she said.
"Yes, very beautiful," he agreed. Then he said, "Cass, I want to tell you something."
"Don't bother, Don. It's not necessary."
"Oh," he said, feeling hurt.
"It's not necessary," she repeated, "because I think I know what you're going to say.
"You couldn't possibly."
"But I do." She hesitated, then added, "All of us-especially I-have things about us that are just as well forgotten now that our work's done."
He brightened a bit. Her words encouraged him, made him lessen in fear for what she might think of him, made him less expect the scorn he was sure she would thrust upon him.
But, Don could not help continue. He could not help beginning his confession.
"You see, Cass," he said. "I've been very foolish. A very, very foolish professor who for a little while forgot his place in the world-his responsibilities-his duty-his-."
She quickly turned to him. One hand reached out and touched at his shoulder. Her fingers were light upon him but Don felt the thrill of her touch as much as if she were nude and churning beneath him.
"Don't, Don," she said quietly. "Don't try to explain-not to me-not to anyone-especially, don't explain to yourself. It's not necessary. The experiences of a few weeks don't really change the kind of man you are. I've already forgotten the-well, the things I've done that bother me. You do the same, Don. You're much too-too-."
"Too what?" he asked.
"Too much of a man," she continued. "Too good a man to let a few weeks change you, So don't."
He caught her hand in his and squeezed her fingers tightly. She pressured his in an answer.
"You don't want an explanation then?" he asked. "An apology?"
"No. Not any more than you want the same from me."
"I don't," he said quickly.
"Then it's over. Forgotten. All right, Don?"
He did not answer. But he smiled. And as his spirits zoomed high, as he thought of what awaited them, Blair, the comfort of the college, the joy they could both find working for that school and the young people who attended it, Don edged closer and opened his arms to Cass.
She moved to him immediately. Then she lifted her face and parted her lips to receive his kiss.
Don felt lost for the first few moments that their lips meshed together, lost in love, in passion, in great, great feeling. And then her lips parted and Don felt her searching tongue, felt its sharpness, the delight it gave, the warm honeysweet draw it made upon him, and with it there was the double pointed sensation of her straining breasts as they burrowed and cuddled to his chest.
Don expelled a desperate sigh and grabbed her close to him. Then he jammed one hand between their bodies to guide upward to one, large tit. He took it as he kissed her and felt her warm breath issue an unheard cry of delight into his mouth. He tried to catch that invisible word, tried to mouth it and make it his, but he could not, there was only her warm breath, her breast, lightly veiled in dress. And then his hand surmounted that cover, sneaked inside the throat of the garment and gripped hot flesh.
Her body shook against him. She pressed tighter. Then, as if she could stand it no longer, she wound her arm tightly around his neck and lowered on the car seat. For a moment they were quiet, unmoving, content that the contact of their bodies should remain as they stretched long together on the car seat, Cass down, slumped in a half-lying position, Don atop her, his head resting between her breasts. And then they were no longer offering only comfort. They were providing heightened passion.
With a little cry, Cass arched, then forcefully exposed her breasts from the bodice of her gown. Don went to them as if they were meant to deliver him from disaster. He kissed, he mouthed, he tongue-wagged against her nipples, went harder, then slowed, then took all of her flesh unto himself. He shook his head from side to side, shook it slowly, lovingly, caressingly, then finally released it to know once again her anxious tongue.
Their tongues mixed for a long time. And for Don it was an ever rising of his already insurmountable joy and glory for the love he was realizing, that love that he knew they would always share.
Slowly, as they kissed, their bodies began to move together, to convey through clothing that which they wished to convey in a unity of bareness.
They separated their mouths. They were both breathing hard, a little frantic, quite desperately, pressuring in spasm for greater, more intimate closeness.
Don moved to achieve it. He swooped one hand beneath her skirt, he wrestled it high, felt the firm warmness of her thighs, then arched upward to burrow closer, to soon arch and achieve the liveliness of her that he wanted. But he hesitated. Then he pulled back, sadly remindful of cars as a setting for youth and illicit love, as the setting of his own sad beginning along the road of adult corruption.
Don flung himself away from her. She raised a bit, was about to cry out her protest, then stopped when Don said, "Come on-this is no place for us-not for us, darling."
"No, of course it isn't," she whispered, the tone sweet, understanding, and very revealing of her trust and love for him.
Don opened the car door. Then he clutched her hand in his and guided her out of the car.
They did not speak as they made a path to the beach, winding around sand bushes, tree stumps, vines and the debris of the beach. When their feet struck the golden sand, they both saw the place at the same time, the place they both knew was meant to be the setting for the culmination of their love. They hurried toward the small space of beach that was surrounded on three sides by thick, heavy bushes.
As if they were entering the mysteries of some childhood castle, Don stood aside as Cass entered the opening of the solitary spot. Then he followed her.
Immediately, they embraced, feeling anew the thrill of their tongues, their pressuring bodies, her breasts, his hands upon them.
And then they could endure no more.
Their bodies jerked apart. His hands flew to the buttons at the front of her dress. She aided his hurried movements, and in a moment she was free and nude and very beautiful before him. Then he hurried to join that nudity, and did join it.
For mere seconds they stood apart, each appraising the nakedness of the other. And it acted as potently as the strongest aphrodisiac. With a cry from Cass, a heave from Don, they stepped forward and crushed their bodies together. This time their kiss was short, made that way by their mounting passion that demanded greater closeness, ultimate unity. But still they delayed that contact that would join them in love's oldest act, the most divine call of all the ages.
Don kissed Cass again but its intent was only to bend her deep and backward to the beach. Then, very gently, he let her lower to the sand. Her body stretched, then her arms reached outward for him to come between them. But he did not. Not immediately. Instead, he moved to his knees, hunched at her side, then like the most devout of supplicants, bent his mouth to a new, more exciting caress of her long, naked body.
"Ohhhhhhh. Ohh!" Cass stammered as Don again mouthed her breasts.
Excitement seared through his body. The warmth and sweetness and soft tenderness of her body was nearly more than he could stand. But he endured it for another few minutes, endured it long enough for him to make a full sweep of her naked body with his probing tongue, long enough for him to delay a bit at her thighs, to round firm flesh below her belly, to her belly, to her ribs, again to her breasts and the long, hard nipples jutting from them, and then, gloriously, happily, to her shoulders, her neck, and her mouth once more.
Now, her kiss tasted differently. It was hotter, more alive, more salty tasting and a little bitter as if it had been stirred by passion, changed by that passion, made sour until it could know sweetness again when the thrill was past and the after-pangs of desire were hers to cherish as a gift from him to her.
Don, his body trembling now, jerked up from her mouth. He scrambled to her knees, moved between them as she raised them in welcome, in anxiety, in great, great relief that he was there, readying himself, only a moment away from that optimum joy of love.
They hissed a long, insane moan of joy together as Don lowered to meet the arch caused by her rioting, joyous hips.
Once joined, they remained that way for a long minute as they concentrated upon their togetherness, as they knew the heat of each other, as she learned his strength and he knew her softness, as they both felt the mounting passion within them as they clung tightly together.
And then Don moved. He rose, pressured a bit from side to side, then shot his hips high and poised, but still joined as Cass continued to pulsate and retain her hold. And then he lowered, faster this time, much faster as if he could not stop. And he could not. Nor could Cass. He pounded. She received. He hoisted high, then plunged. She withdrew, then arched to meet him. And then they delayed for moments again while they formed a circle of their joined bodies, while they knew the delight of movement that was meant for both of them.
"Ohhhhhhhh, Don, Don, Don," Cass cried. "My love ... My ... My-."
The words blubbered into the incoherent sounds of laboring love.
And then they speeded, shot hard to each other, fought as combatants that were nevertheless lovers, foes who loved, lovers who dared to fight their bodies hard against their mate in the greatest expression of love's high, high feeling.
He pounded again, slowed, speeded, went lazy and loving, slow-fucked her, speeded again, hit a peak, surpassed it, yelped a cry of disbelief for all the joy he was about to know, then pounded hard, hard, hard, and even harder.
Cass matched Don's speed. She matched his slackening pace, too, and knew the joy of her own lazy loving when he turned that way. And then they were at their end, there was only their dash to that wall that must be conquered, the mountain to be defeated, that high, high place in the skies that they must reach in order to know the thrill of crashing, tearing, blubbering, zooming, racking descent.
Their bodies thudded hard. Their mouths joined and clamped as their bodies split apart with feeling. And when they quieted, their mouths remained tight to each other as they moaned the whispers of lovers, those soft sounds that followed love's expression, that, for them, told of the future, of sanity and security, of comfort, of worth-while work, and, of the joy they would always share.