Chapter 12
Back in her own cabin by two a.m., Tricia was so excited, so busy trying to cleanse her mind of all that had happened, trying to forget that it had actually occurred, she didn't even hear the click of the key in the door lock. She had showered and scrubbed her body furiously, but that didn't help. The filth wasn't on her skin, it was deep inside her conscience. The first thing she heard was Lee's low, sultry voice saying, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were still up."
At the first sound of Lee's voice, Tricia whirled around, her heart walloping hard against her ribcage. For the instant, she forgot she was naked. She turned, leaning back against the dresser. She watched Lee moving toward her, saw the older woman's eyes glued to the sight of Tricia's jutting, bruised, full breasts.
"Honey, is anything the matter?" Lee crooned, as she came close. "You look all upset about something. Is anything bothering you? Can I help in any way?"
She reached up and soothed her hand across Tricia's forehead.
"No, no!" Tricia managed. Her voice sounded strange even to herself. "I'm all right."
"But you feel so feverish, my dear. I wish I had some rubbing alcohol here, I'd give you a quick rubdown. Maybe that would help."
Lee's eyes were looking straight into Tricia's now. They held the same strong, confident expression that she'd seen in Patrick Doyle's the first time he maneuvered her into this same kind of predicament. Oh god, Tricia thought, she knows, she knows!
"Not that it wouldn't be kind of hard to keep my mind on my work," Lee said. "I probably wouldn't get past these pretty things." With that her hand reached out and boldly cupped Tricia's already sore breasts, gently squeezing, kneading the solid, round flesh, lightly brushing against and teasing the again-erecting nipple. "So beautiful;" Lee continued her crooning tone. "You beautiful darling you!"
Tricia closed her eyes, shuddering with new delicious sensations that were flowing through her body. Oh god, she thought, do I need more?
Weakly she murmured: "Oh no! Please don't! Please!"
Lee's hand moved to the other breast, trying to capture its overflowing young fullness.
"Which do you mean, angel," Lee asked, hoarsely. "Don't or please?"
Tricia felt weak at the knees, exactly like when Patrick Doyle was sipping at her pussy an hour or so before. "I don't know. I--I don't know what's the matter with me."
"Well, I do," Lee said. "It's very obvious. You need some good loving for a change. You look like some crude animals have been at you. Men! With their big grubby paws. Don't fight it, hon. Everyone needs... a bit of special tenderness now and then, in order to forget how cruel and selfish the other sex is. You know, I've never felt this way before either, about any woman I've known, and I've known many. The way I feel about you, I mean. I just can't help it, coming in here and seeing you so beautiful and naked and all. It seems all I can think of lately is touching you, kissing you, caressing you. Maybe it was just meant to be, my sharing the same cabin with you, at just this time in our lives. Because I have a feeling you want me, too, need me, don't you, Adorable?"
Tricia was shivering all over now, as the other woman's hands moved to her feverish thighs, stroked them, sampling the firm, round, tenderly smooth flesh.
"I--don't know, Lee. I just feel so... disgusted with myself."
"Isn't it what they have done to you that you're disgusted with. Believe me, sweet, I'll never treat you like men treat you. Ever..."
She took Tricia's arm gently, leading her toward the bed. "Come on over here, where you'll be more comfortable."
Tricia didn't want to do this, just as she didn't want to do any of the other things she had done this night. But this in particular: she knew it was wrong, against all her basic precepts; but she again seemed without willpower. It seemed she had no longer any power to fight against anything. She allowed herself to be led towards the bed. Then she was being eased down onto it, gently, so gently--but so firmly, too.
She looked up, then, saw Lee starting to undress. She wanted to cry out, tell her to stop, but she could get no words out. Instead she kept remembering the events in Doyle's stateroom, the ecstatic expressions on the faces of Vicky and Sabrina--and then she became aware once again of the increasing heat and need and want in her own tortured body.
Lee's blouse came off first, then her skirt. She was now clad only in brief peach colored panties and a bra to match. As she reached back to unhook the bra, she said: "My breasts are not as beautiful as yours." She was right. The nude figure before Tricia appeared to be almost boyish, as compared with the wealth of Sabrina's body or Vicky's figure. Her shoulders were broader too, and Tricia thought: it will seem like a man, almost like a man, if I keep my eyes closed. She closed them quickly.
A moment later, Lee's hands were again on her breasts, this time more satisfying. The other hand was now boldly caressing the soft, gentle mound of her belly, then opening her thighs, coursing up and down the smooth, sleek white flesh there, gently kneading. The fiery longing in Tricia again flamed up with growing intensity.
A moment later, she felt the bed give with the weight of Lee's body as she lay down beside her. She felt the other woman's leg thrown over her own. The contact of their warm flesh sent shocks of sensations rioting through Tricia.
The next instant she felt the wet warmness of Lee's mouth on her breasts, as her lips plucked excitedly at the aroused nipples. Tricia gave one big quiver of delight and gave up. She hugged Lee's head to her breast and moaned, "Yes! Yes! Oh yes!"
The moist kisses left her breasts, then roved over her shoulders and arms, down across the soft slope of her belly. They tingled up and down her thighs and now Tricia was panting, twisting and writhing, begging: "Please! Please!"
Then it happened. The acute sensations again burst through Tricia in white-hot flashes and her back arched upward, hips quivering as she uttered an agonized but welcoming cry from deep in her throat. Her hands found Lee's hair and tangled in it, caressing, holding. The following moments became eternity for Tricia. She soared again and again to the new heights of breathtaking fulfillment, no longer aware of time nor place nor anything but the endless demands and satisfactions of her own body...
The room was alive with the wild tinglings on the bed, the entwinings of the two women and the sounds of their passionate outcries and groanings. The bed literally shook with the thrashing of their legs, the gyrations of their hips, Tricia moaning in acquiescence, as the weight of Lee's body bore down on her, legs wide apart, an open vagina against her mouth, leaking pearly passions out onto her lips, burning her tongue, gripping it, working it in deeper and against the flaming walls, moving in a crazy dance, the soft-wet blossom opening and closing and contracting and owning, her mouth all flushed full of the endless flow, half suffocated with the seething liquid surge of desire that nestled and cuddled against her tongue, her whole face submerged now and bathed by the mellowing inundation as Tricia hurled her body upward, the intoxication not diminishing, the insatiable narcotic need grabbing at her like strong fingers, tearing at her loins, searing and welling up in her breasts and throat; and Lee's tongue venturing into her belly like the plea of a starved lover, her swollen clit sliding in Lee's mouth.
The room went suddenly taut and silent and then Lee's urgent voice coming out from between her legs: "Oh God, I can't help it, honey, I'm coming... here's the rest of it now, all I've got... E-E-E-E... Ow-wwww... Oh-hhhhhhh!"
After that night something was broken between Larry Stevens and Patrick Doyle. Larry seriously thought of telling Doyle where to shove his crummy commission. Then, as he tried to fathom just why he should feel so strongly about a matter he could barely comprehend, he kept his mouth shut. That Doyle had committed an unpardonable breach of etiquette--and even ethics--there was no doubt. But as to why Larry Stevens should want to throw over the best deal that could ever happen to him, there was plenty of doubt.
Nevertheless, he no longer had that close contact with the older man, that desire to seek him out and talk with him and ask his advice. It was not only because of the disappointment he himself had felt, but also because of how Tricia took it. To him it seemed that the girl had been shattered by Doyle's crudeness, and he wanted to tell her not to take it so hard. Couldn't she see now that Doyle was probably just another wise guy?
But Tricia avoided him. She avoided everyone, appearing only for meals, and then with Lee Jergens. Both solemn and unsmiling. At the table with Doyle, Larry managed a surface courtesy toward the man but hardly more than that. On the sixth day, though, he was snapped back to reality.
"We land tomorrow, lad," Doyle said. "Anything to report on the project?"
"It's almost finished. There's enough on paper now for you to look at. Care to check it?"
"Umm, no. I'd rather see the final product."
"It's pretty good, I think, really. Although I have only my own opinion to go by. And, uh, one other."
The twin brows shot up. "You've let someone else see the thing? Who?"
"Tricia Goode. That day when you went swimming with your clothes on instead of joining us at the milk bar. It was only a rough sketch then, but she seemed interested so I brought it out and showed it to her."
"And did she like it?"
"I'll say she did. She acted as if I was the most talented architect in the world."
A cloud crossed the sharp features as some sort of distress touched Doyle. The same look on another face would have spelled jealousy, but that was absurd. Patrick Doyle couldn't be jealous of anything--unless it was himself.
Larry remembered that from Doyle's point of view their agreement was ridiculous. For no apparent reason, the man was lending his name to an untried and unknown architect. Possibly he was beginning to feel qualms about his impulsive offer. The deal had been consummated in a moment of brashness, almost out of cuteness.
Well, let him stew in his own juices then, big-mouthed, insensitive blowhard that he was. He had mousetrapped too many other people on this ship to gain much sympathy. And, after all that talk about integrity, he was going to have to put up or shut up.
Anyway, his strange attitude could be caused by nothing else but the commission.
Or could it?
Larry wasn't sure. Although he fought against it, the thought persisted that in spite of Doyle's superiority of manner, underneath that confident exterior lay a certain undeniable insecurity. No matter how often the man whip-lashed people with his tongue, he still showed a need for human intimacy. In his own left-handed way, Doyle sought friends and friendship as much as anyone.
Another thing--in the intervening time since the cocktail party a transformation had come over the great man. His jauntiness was put on, his voice rang with a certain bravado. Some starch had gone out of his demeanor. In moments when he did not know he was being observed, his face became lined, his shoulders drooped and an expression of abstract concentration came over him.
"Anything wrong, Mr. Doyle?"
"Hmm? Wrong? What on earth are you talking about?" The man straightened up, fiddled with his necktie and then nervously clicked spoon against fork.
"That," said Larry, indicating the moving tableware, "I must say you're difficult enough when you're in a fine fettle, but when you're like this you're unbearable. Have I done or said something that bothers you?"
"Not at all, my boy, not at all," came the studied reply. "It's just that I've been doing some serious cogitating. True. At times I do." The sharp features softened. "You may laugh, but I'm getting ready to do a novel. Been building up to it for years and finally it's taking root."
Eyes distant, Doyle sipped his coffee. "I've known it's been in me for a long time and I've been tempted frequently. But I didn't want to do one of those ordinary things that I can toss off in my sleep. No, this is a big undertaking and I'm going to spend some time on it. No more roaming around on pleasure trips. Believe it or not, I'm going to work."
"Really? Somehow it doesn't fit you. But nothing about you would surprise me. Going to start on it in Europe?"
"I haven't decided yet. It's not the kind of thing I can rush into, you know. It will be a year before I can even get the first draft done. And another year, probably, to complete it. But it'll be good, don't worry about that."
Larry nodded, grinning. "I'm sure it will be."
He wanted to hear more about the new novel, but his gaze was distracted by a movement at Tricia's table. She and her roommate were getting up. Larry tried to catch her eye, hoping to get her attention without openly chasing her. But she merely glanced around the room without a pause and then, with Lee Jergens in tow, hurried out of the place.
Doyle peered at Larry thoughtfully. "What's your trouble, young fellow? Can't get to second base?"
"Not from the look of it."
"Too bad," Doyle murmured gently. "A fine girl, that Tricia Goode. Don't you agree?"
"Uh-huh. Too fine for me, I guess."
"In love with her?"
"I--I just don't know. But it wouldn't do me much good even if I were." Then, lowering his eyes ruefully, "You must think me an awful fool."
"No. It's no crime for a young man to exert himself over a lovely and intelligent girl. Even if he doesn't wind up as her husband, the time and effort aren't wasted. It's only wasted when the girl isn't worth it, when she's a phony or a tease. Not when there's some real substance to her. Well, take my word for it, there is something to this Tricia Goode. Much to her. No, I don't think you're a fool, Larry."
A kind of poignant quality was in Doyle's voice, one that Larry could not quite pinpoint. And again he was assailed with curiosity about what made this man tick.
"I'll tell you the kind of girls who aren't worth it," Doyle went on. "And there are some right here on this ship. The weak little things who are prissy and untouchable during most of the trip and then just before docking they thaw out. Why? So that they can have some big strong idiot to carry their bags, buy meals and wine for them and act as a general handyman. Oh, they'll be sly and seductive about it and hint at what wonderful gifts they will eventually bestow. And since the American male is trained from childhood to kowtow to the American female--or else mama spank--the poor goof has little choice. He's probably going abroad to get away from his coeds and would prefer to wile away his idle hours in a French brothel or with some bosomy Italian waitress. So what does he get? A chance to lug baggage for professional virgins." .
"Hey, you sound bitter."
"I am bitter. I ought to know--I did it on my first couple of voyages and I've never forgot-ten." A look of ecstasy passed over Patrick Doyle's face. "Mmmm, I think I'll put it in my novel. It occurs to me that this book will become the cause celebre of the century. Possibly I shall be paid not to publish it."
They chatted awhile and then Larry left to get back to his drawing board. Somehow, though, he no longer felt any animosity toward Patrick Doyle.