Chapter 4

Over the next several weeks Viola saw that she found good excuses continually for going over to visit the newly wed Parkers. At first she would borrow a cup of sugar in the morning, then gradually her visits were extended via other routes. Sally didn't seem to have any objection indeed she seemed to welcome the older woman's company and advice. As neither of them went out to work during the day, they had plenty of time to coffee klatch with each other and gabble over this, that and the others. Eventually they were going shopping together arm-in-arm as well.

It did not escape Viola's notice that Randy Parker didn't seem to object to her frequent visiting with Sally. Indeed, she received the distinct impression that he found Viola an attractive and interesting addition to their household. In fact, when Sally was not paying close attention, it seemed to Viola that she could feel something more than merely community spirit in those sidelong glances she received so often from Randy. Clearly, he was sizing her up. But to what end? Was there something about the lives of these two newlyweds that was not entirely quite right? Viola received an inkling of this occasionally in the strange questions Sally would broach to her about sex between a man and wife.

"Oh, we don't plan to have children for years yet," Sally might say, and this would serve as the lead-in for certain questions about sex. Before long it was quite evident to Viola that Sally was relatively inexperienced in the fine art of keeping a man happy.

"But Randy is very tolerant," Sally would say sometimes, almost as an afterthought.

Nor did Cliff seem to have any objection to Viola becoming increasingly friendly with Sally Parker. Indeed, he seemed to welcome it. He often had a good word to say about Sally. He thought she was a good-looking girl, apparently, although somewhat young and immature.

Viola had to agree with his estimate of Sally's immaturity and naivet‚. Even when their womanly discussion touched on sex, Sally showed a distinct reticence and embarrassment if sex was discussed in anything but the most general terms. It was apparent before very long that she actually viewed the bodily functions with some dismay, and that specific terminology was outside the range of her attention, thought, and consideration.

To Viola this constituted a fascinating revelation, for it explained to her a few things relative to Randy Parker's mysterious glances in her direction. Obviously it was possible that the Parkers had some sort of sexual problem. Randy seemed altogether too hip, cool and worldly. The contrast between himself and Sally could not have been more striking.

After awhile Viola thought she noticed that Cliff had perceived this, too. There was nothing she could put her finger on exactly, it was just that Cliff always seemed unusually solicitous toward Sally; he treated her like a blonde virgin princess. He held her chair for her when she sat, lit her cigarettes in the most considerate fashion, and always became the picture of a gentleman when she was around. Occasionally Viola felt a stab of jealousy with respect to all the careful, gentlemanly attention Sally received from Cliff, but after awhile she adjusted herself to it. After all, it really didn't matter how Cliff behaved at this late, burnt-out stage of their marriage. Their sex life had disintegrated to the point where they were little more than roommates.

For another thing, she was also fascinated to learn where their little game was taking them. For Viola it seemed as if the air between their houses was charged with tension. She was dying with curiosity to see where it would all lead.

By now the exchange of sociability between their two houses was almost complete. From having drinks together after dinner, they went to having dinner together. Sometimes Viola would do the cooking, sometimes Sally. Occasionally they would go out to one of the many fine restaurants around Schaumburg. It developed that both couples liked pretty much the same types of food. Cliff and Randy both favored thick, juicy steaks, while Viola and Sally could take southern fried chicken anytime. Occasionally both couples were in a mood for Italian food, and then they would go someplace that was candlelit and had soft music.

Occasionally there would be dancing in a restaurant, and now the sexual tension between the two couples seemed to be gradually increasing. Between Viola and Randy there was no longer any doubt. When Randy held Viola in his arms, both of their faces expressionless so that no one could tell what they were thinking and feeling, Viola would lewdly circulate her cuntal mound against Randy's until she could feel the bulge rising in his slacks. Then she would proceed to bear down and rub against that bulge until she could feel an echoing moisture in the slit between her legs. From time to time she would find herself breathing too heavily and hotly into his nicely-tanned ear, and then she wondered if anyone noticed that her eyelids had become heavy and half-shut. But Sally and Cliff always appeared oblivious, whether they were dancing with each other or merely holding a conversation back at the table.

Sometimes Viola would find her fingers creeping affectionately over the back of Randy's neck. She knew that her hot, breathy sighs were echoing in his ear because with each one his penis seemed to jerk within the humid hug of her loins. By then her pussy would be flowing copiously and it would be all she could do to keep her moans from flowing as well. She considered it only a miracle that Sally and Cliff never seemed to notice, Sally because she was too naive, Cliff because he took her for granted.

But the tension was becoming unbearable for Viola. She would have done it on a flagpole with Randy had he but asked her. What was the trouble? Why didn't he approach her, or even sneak a quick feel which was the sort of thing she had gotten used to from men other than Cliff? In a way it seemed almost as if he respected her too much he seemed to respect her as much as Cliff did, in fact.

And because he respected her or seemed to

she felt as if she were glowing all the more for him. Viola felt as if she were screwing herself up

her loins, her psyche, everything towards an agony of sensuality that was coiled like a steel spring, awaiting only the terrible urgency of release.

When would this release come? She had no idea. She knew only that it would have to come soon, because she was going to sleep every night in a molten heat of sensuality squirming her legs and dreaming of Randy Parker.

But they never seemed to have any real moments alone together. They always went out as couples, and there were never any real chances for them to explore further this sexual tension that was so rapidly escalating between them.

It was several months before Viola was finally to have her chance to learn just what it was Randy's intentions were...

They had had dinner at the Blue Angel near the O'Hare Inn and danced a little bit; then they had gone to see the hula dancers at the Hoe Sai Gai on Touhy Avenue. Viola could see that Sally was not quite prepared to accept the Hawaiian hula as being an even halfway civilized dance. Her disapproval, firm and tight-lipped, of how the Hawaiian girls swung their long black hair around and gyrated their voluptuous fleshy young brown bodies was quite transparent. Viola glanced at Randy during the performance; he didn't appear to notice Sally's displeasure. Indeed, instead it was Cliff who seemed to notice Sally's undercurrent of dismay. Before long he was clearing his throat noisily and asking if "Uh, maybe-Viola, do you think it was time we were going?"

Sally seconded the motion, Randy and Viola had no objection, and before long they found themselves driving on the way home, with Sally keeping a sullen silence in the back seat next to Randy.

"Anyone for a nightcap?" Cliff finally suggested amiably enough.

"Suits me," said Randy, not looking at Viola.

Viola smiled to herself. She had a feeling that it was in the cards for something to happen very soon. Sally seemed just slightly put out with her handsome husband this night. There was no telling when the catalyst would come or what precisely it would be, but she did have the feeling that they were heading for a crisis of some sort between the four of them.

Sally went to the little girl's room to "freshen up" while Cliff made drinks for the four of them. Randy and Viola sat down on the long couch carefully at opposite ends, far apart from each other. Viola noticed that the sun had turned the dark black hairs on the backs of Randy's hands a russet brown, giving them a sort of reddish tint. Randy worked outdoors, of course. She wondered if he was a nut brown all over. Cliff was white and flaccid as vanilla pudding; but then, he worked in an office. On the other hand, it was the height of summer. But Cliff looked like a beached white whale with his clothes off. He was getting more and more disgusting.

Both Cliff and Randy were drinking beer. Viola had a highball with a cherry in it, so that it looked like a Manhattan. Sally usually had liqueur like anisette on the rocks, and Cliff always remembered to make it for her.

"Well, that was some show at the Hoe Sai Gai," Viola ventured as Sally returned to the little group and picked up her drink at the bar. She was trying specifically to stir things up.

It wasn't hard to do. Sally picked up her remark immediately, and ran hard with it.

"I'll say," she said, taking a sip of her anisette, "most disgraceful performance I've ever seen in my life. I'm surprised to see they allow that sort of thing within the city limits."

"Aw, it wasn't so bad, honey," said Randy, trying to placate her.

Viola only chuckled. "That depends on your standards. Seemed like harmless good fun to me.

Sally made a sour face and Cliff spoke sharply: "I think Sally has a point. That sort of thing is just a little too ribald for me, I think, or for the community in which we live."

"Then we didn't have to go watch it, or stay once we were there," said Viola.

"That's beside the point," Cliff said almost crossly.

"No, it's exactly the point," countered Viola, "in a free society nobody forces adults to watch suggestive dances. That's a choice you have to make of your own accord."

Randy laughed, looking at her with a highly amused grin on his boyish face. "Well, I hope we're not going to discuss politics all night! How 'bout a refill, Cliff?"

Viola smiled sheepishly, her pretty face burning. Randy had called her out for being unfeminine. If there was any impression she wanted to avoid, that was it.

"Well," she stammered, backing up her tone into something a trifle sweeter, "I didn't really mean-"

"Well, I don't know anything about politics," said Sally, her breast heaving, "but I know it was disgusting all the same. May I have another too, Cliff?" She passed her empty glass to Randy, who passed it on. It escaped no one's notice that Sally had finished her drink unusually fast for her. Ordinarily she merely sipped. Viola wondered if she detected an undercurrent of emotion in the young buxom blonde that was out of the usual. But to be taking two full anisettes like that, one right after the other. . .

Before long the conversation had settled down into less controversial topics, without any further embarrassments. Randy complained about the high cost of building. Bricks and labor costs were rising all the time, and then people took umbrage that their houses would have to cost more. The builder got caught in the middle. Consequently a great many houses had to take cheaper materials, or there would be no profit margin. And so on. It seemed to Viola that Randy was fascinating so young and handsome, so clever, and yet so masculine too. By contrast, Cliff seemed somewhat duller and with less go about him. His field was marketing for the Mormon Oats Corporation, and after all what could one say about that? It was just a dull multi-million dollar corporation, and a nothing job. All the crucial decisions and crises were handled by people far above Cliff. Despite their great plans and hopes his father, after all, had been a senior executive, a vice-president Cliff just hadn't risen very far in terms of either title or responsibility.

So there was no question about who shone in their conversations. Randy Parker was an exciting, vibrant young man. When would they get a moment together alone?

And then Viola saw her chance.

"Which way is the bathroom?" asked Sally, finishing her third full anisette. "I think I'm going to be sick."