Chapter 1
Jennifer Lorn had never really seen her own body-not to look at it, to inspect all its interesting contours-the slim waist, the tapering legs, the high, amber-tipped breasts, the-place between her legs, sketchily covered with fine, silky hair. She couldn't even let herself think of that or what it was or if it had a name.
Mother Dear would be horrified. The very idea! Nice girls... Well, if Mother Dear could have arranged it, girls wouldn't even have had legs, much less anything between them. Mother Dear had not approved of men (sex, of course, was never mentioned). Men were vile creatures. Look what a man had done to Mother Dear.
A cruel brute of a man, Jennifer's father had been-to hear Mother Dear tell it. And once Jennifer was born, her mother had taken to her bed where she had spent most of the past twenty years, enjoying one brand of illness after another as each became fashionable.
Just a month ago Mother Dear had surprised her doctor (the latest one of a long procession) and astounded herself by becoming really ill, with a heart attack, and climaxing that by dying of it, leaving Jennifer an orphan with a small fortune.
There were those who would tell you that this was impossible-that Mrs. Lorn could not possibly have died of a heart attack, since she didn't have a heart. Nevertheless, heart attack was the medical verdict. And Jennifer was free after twenty years of devoted attention to Mrs. Lorn-as Mrs. Lorn had put it many times.
That was not quite Jennifer's version. Actually, Jennifer didn't have a version, but had she been able to express it or even realize it, she wouldn't have put it down as "devoted attention." Mother Dear had demanded-and received -constant attention, but it was not devoted, as any of a long succession of maids could have told you. Mother Dear was a tearful whiner, exacting attention with the ingenuity and persistence of a drill sergeant.
She had also spent endless hours telling Jennifer just how brutal and domineering and- well-vulgar men could be, without being specific enough to make it intriguing or even informative.
So at twenty Jennifer was viewing her body in the tall pier glass without even knowing why she was really interested in it. It was, so far as she knew, a perfectly normal body-rather better assembled than most, but normal. A trifle pale, perhaps, but that was from staying home so much with Mother Dear. Mother Dear didn't approve of tennis or golf or, horror of horrors, swimming, where men and women went in the water together practically naked. Mother Dear's idea of practically naked ranged somewhere around the Gibson girl bloomers-and-blouse era, but since this was unspecified in her endlessly long lectures to Jennifer, no one was aware of it.
Her lectures on men and sex had been absolute marvels of obfuscation, which had left a growing, alert and fairly intelligent Jennifer with nothing but the vaguest of uneasy doubts about the prospects of continuing the human race beyond this generation. And how it had got this far without complete disintegration often baffled her.
Now Jennifer was free of lectures, free of the repressive, funereal atmosphere of the sickroom, even though it still smelled faintly of overlayered medications and Mother Dear's various perfumes that had never quite hid the fact that Mother Dear did not bathe as regularly as she should. Mother Dear's last doctor had recommended throwing open the shutters of the sickroom and letting in a little sunlight and air.
"And, my dear, I might suggest the same thing with your life. Open a few shutters. Let in some light and air. Live for a while in the sun. You may get a bit sunburned, but even that's a healthier condition than living cooped up in a gloomy room. And now I must be going." And he had blown his nose decisively into a large and very white handkerchief. He managed a smile for her. "If I were twenty years younger, I might help you open some of those shutters."
Well! Jennifer frowned at her nude body reflected in Mother Dear's pier glass. This very act was opening one shutter. The chaste pier glass had probably never reflected a body, much less one so completely and aggressively nude. The very act of invading what had once been Mother Dear's sanctum and peeling out of the stodgy clothes Mother Dear had decreed was a step in revolt-a shutter flung wide to some unknown sun with unguessed powers.
And Jennifer liked it.
With the room's physical shutters open it was warm and attractive if a little on the excessively feminine side. The warm air played over Jennifer's soft, too-white skin, exciting her in ways she hadn't realized she could get excited and of which she was quite certain Mother Dear would not approve.
Jennifer lifted her chest with a deep inhalation and watched her breasts, small but shapely (though Jennifer was not yet aware of just how shapely; she had nothing for comparison and no standards to judge by). She got a definite and rather licentious tingle from looking at them, and even more from touching the soft amber-pink nipples and seeing them spring into firmer shape.
She ran her hands down her sides and around her thighs-my goodness, she had actually thought "thighs"-which were part of the anatomy Mother Dear chose to disregard. And as for what was between her legs! That furry little cushion that hid what, so far as Jennifer had been aware that her pudendum-oh, she had looked up the name in a good dictionary- served other functions. And that it got hot in flashes, as it was getting right now whenever she touched her nipples. Very intriguing hot flashes that somehow indicated more and more exciting flashes yet to come, if Jennifer but knew the key.
Academically, Jennifer knew the key. Even Mother Dear had not been able to shut out the entire world. Some very private, rather lurid, and quite specific reading had informed Jennifer that beneath that muff was not just an outlet for wastes but an inlet for a male penis, with mysterious but very exciting results. Which was something she meant to discover for herself.
Jennifer was naive, in that she had been excessively sheltered and almost effectively brainwashed, but she wasn't stupid. She was quite aware that there were obstacles in the way of getting a male penis into her pudendum, the major one being that she didn't know any males. She couldn't court the elderly janitor of the apartment house down the block, the heavily mustached butcher who was also heavily jocular, a newspaper boy who had to be paid every two weeks, and assorted taxi drivers, delivery boys and the inescapable repairmen, laundrymen, and truck drivers of our mechanized civilization.
Jennifer simply did not know any males except an elderly cousin who was also the family lawyer, the various doctors, all invariably elderly, who had attended Mother Dear over the years, and a mysterious and intriguing male voice on the phone that called Mother Dear regularly and to which Mother Dear referred as "my broker."
Jennifer scowled at her reflection. She turned sideways for a glimpse of her slim, rounded buttocks and tapering legs. Now, if she only knew a male...
Jennifer was about to meet a male, but did not know it. While she was contemplating her navel and other more interesting areas of her slim, virginal anatomy, she had, in a dim way, heard the doorbell, without associating it with anything concerning her. Callie, the latest of a series of maids (Mother Dear had run through maids in very short order), would attend to whoever had rung.
Jennifer turned farther, craning her neck to peer at her slim behind reflected in the pier glass. She took a few tentative steps, observing the rocking motion of her buttocks, which, according to her reading, was extremely provocative. She failed to get any reaction from watching her rocking buttocks.
She got ample reaction from walking into the young man who was just entering the door of Mother Dear's room, guided there by Callie and left to his own devices.
Jennifer felt the rough texture of his coat first as she bumped against his chest, and then his arms flung around her. She heard, "Steady, there, ma'am. You'll trip," spoken in a rich male baritone. The arms tightened, but that wasn't what cut off Jennifer's breath. It was just the feel of them around her, hands warm against her back-and her whole front atingle from the rough texture of his suit. With a special hot flash down where, as she knew, hot flashes originated.
It was a momentary thing, a quick brush, a pair of strong arms holding her and the utter horror of knowing that a man had grabbed her nude body. She didn't even look at him, except for a brief glimpse in the mirror, where she had been observing the rocking motion of her tokus.
She simply shoved. "Get out! Get your hands off me! Get out! Get out!" And whimpered.
The man released her and stepped backward through the door. "Your pardon, madam..." He closed the door, to leave Jennifer staggering and shaken. And horrified. The brute! The callous, base male...
Only, did she really feel like that? There had been excitement in the pressure of his chest against her breasts, a stifling excitement made more exciting by the rasp of rough-textured cloth across her nipples and the feel of his arms around her. And the warmth of his hands along her back. And the excitement had extended downward, into her pudendum, which had gotten one of those hot flashes, only this one was deeper--and it lingered. She could still feel it as she stood there before the closed door, hearing him retreat down the hall.
What a little fool she'd been! Here she had been studying herself in a mirror, wondering how and where she could get a male penis into her pudendum-and one had come along providentially. And she had shooed him away.
Jennifer almost reached for the knob to fling open the door, to call out to him, perhaps even to run after him. But first a robe or dress or something... anything! Jennifer scrabbled among the clothes she had discarded, trying for something quick, which hadn't been Mother Dear's idea of clothing at all. Clothing had to be designed for difficulties, to prevent even worse things.
By the time Jennifer had on at least an outer shell of clothing and had hurried down the hall and pattered down the stairs, he was gone, with Callie standing at the door, still clutching a fan-folded dollar bill and wearing a bemused look.
She turned slowly when she heard Jennifer, waving the fanned bill. "He gimme this, he did. Said the show was worth the admission price."
Jennifer flushed, braking her headlong rush. Yes, he'd seen the show, all there was to see. But there could have been a second act, less concentrated but more interesting.
"Who was he?"
Callie looked blank, not unusual for Mother Dear's maids, since Mother Dear's habits were well known at all the domestic employment agencies, which for years had sent her all their culls. "I dunno, ma'am. He jes' said he had some papers to leave with Mrs. Lorn. So I sent him up to her old room. The papers is right there." Callie pointed with the fanned bill to a large manila envelope on the hall table and then, suddenly realizing what she held, tucked it safely into the cleft between her meager bosoms, scuttling for her quarters below stairs.
So he was gone. Jennifer stood there, aware suddenly that she was adequately covered with a most uninteresting dress and that was all. A faint breeze from somewhere stirred up under the dress, faintly brushing at the soft hairs of her pudendum, stirring it once again to flashes and hardening her nipples.
Memory played interesting tricks. She could recall the exact texture and weave and color of his jacket, and measure, against some mysterious feminine standard, the strength of his arms. But she didn't know what he looked like. Her head had been turned. There had been a fleeting, shadowed glimpse in the mirror, and then his retreat. And a closed door.
It shouldn't have ended like that. It should have concluded in a welter of passion, in fornication and struggling of bodies and the deep penetration of his penis into her pudendum. It always did in the books Jennifer had read, left behind by various maids.
There had been passages in those books that were graphic. How his penis swelled to enormous proportions, how the girl's pudendum- only the books generally called it "cunt"- would swell and open up like a flower, spouting juices, so that she wet the way up her passage of love for his reddish-purple prick to penetrate. Locked in passionate embrace they had worked into an exciting rhythm that always ended in an explosive swell of his penis far up her cunt. There had been other details, too, that had sounded exciting and had brought on some of those hot flashes Jennifer had come to know.
Now all she had left of that brief, unfulfilled encounter was a manila envelope. And no identification. Just some brochures on investing in a shipping company that also ran glamor cruises. Jennifer flung them down angrily. There was no way to check on who the young man had been. And how did she know he was a young man? She hadn't really seen his face. There was just something so-masculine, so virile about the way his arms... And the flesh of his hands on her skin... Jennifer relived that moment, deciding all over again that he was young. And now she added attractive. She almost went on to "handsome" but decided, wisely, that the evidence wasn't strong enough.
Of course, she could ask Callie, but somehow, after the young man's comments on the show being worth the price, that didn't seem exactly the thing to do. It might stir up inquiries and speculation in Callie. Not that Jennifer really cared about what Callie thought, but somehow that moment there in the room, with the young man's arms around her naked body, was not something she wanted Callie speculating on. Not that it was sacred. Far from it! But just the same, it was a moment Jennifer preferred to keep to herself, to remember with a certain delicious repugnance-and get more hot flashes.
At that moment the phone rang. Jennifer, still bemused by her encounter and how it might have developed, strolled into the living room to answer it.
The voice was masculine but deeper, harsher than Jennifer remembered from her brief encounter. No, this wasn't him. It was Mother Dear's "broker." With hearty laughter in his voice;
"I don't know how you do it, but you can sure pick the long shots-and weeks in advance. Mrs. Lorn, they ought to have you handicapping."
Jennifer drew a deep breath, stilling her momentary disappointment. "This is Mrs. Lorn's daughter."
The voice hesitated. "Daughter? You don't sound like the five-six-year-old kid Mrs. Lorn is always talking about."
"I don't because-I'm not-by quite a few years."
"And spunky, too. That I like. Well, what do I do with this bundle your mother won on Slim Dancer in the Preakness? She picked this filly six-seven weeks ago, when she could have been scratched. At those odds, she shoulda been. And now she's won-with a track record."
"How much?" Jennifer was making quick adjustments in her image of her mother. And of herself.
"Oh, just a couple of hundred. If your maw had put more on Slim Dancer's nose, she'd a broke the big bookies."
"Suppose you bring it over." Already Jennifer was setting a scene that would entail her being in a negligee-Mother Dear had some lovely sheer ones.
"Sounds cozy, kiddo, but I can't leave here. I got other winners to pay off."
Jennifer hesitated, wondering if she could carry it off. And then she made the plunge. "I could come over and collect it."
Jennifer had flung open a shutter and was waiting for the sun to shine in, and possibly give her a little sunburn.
The voice hesitated and then chuckled. "Now that does sound cozy. Grab a cab. On me. The address is..."