Chapter 1

Anthony closed his eyes as soon as he buckled his seat belt on the airliner. Funny how taking off in a plane always made him feel drowsy. Drowsy and sleepy, a bit like he had sometimes felt in the dentist's chair when they administered that little cup over his face and told him to inhale. It had always been Doctor Hall's busty young nurse who strapped the leather "inhaler" around his head, her full breasts resting softly on his shoulder, creating a "thought injection" of its own. He thought of the warm feel of those breasts now, although he knew it wasn't the dentist's relaxing "sleep machine" that was making him feel so aloof to his surroundings this time. It was the three shots of Scotch he had sneaked while in the men's room at the airport. No matter, it caused the same euphoria that he now experienced as the drone of the plane's engines drifted farther away from his conscious mind.

His drifting mind remembered what had happened the two times he arrived home from that dentist's office. He had told his wife, Helen, that he just had to sleep for a while, making more of the pain he had been through than was actually the truth. Then, in his bedroom, he had remembered the warmth of those breasts again, the nurse's blonde "Orphan Annie" curly-short hairdo, the rosy cheeks that made her look even more like the comic-strip character, the slim waist, the bubbly little ass inside that white uniform. And his penis was in his fist, and he lobbed it heavily up and down, sliding his palm for the similar friction of pussy-womb warmth. In his imagining mind, the sweet young thing of a nurse was done for the day, and he had waited downstairs from the office for her. He had taken her to her apartment where she had undressed for him, doing a slow, tantalizing belly dance as she did.

And as he heard his wife turn on the dishwasher out in the kitchen, Anthony had pumped his penis evenly under the covers, dreaming of the nurse's pixie-like face, with its pert little nose buried in his pubic hair, an incredulously warm tongue working its magic around his rod, licking, sucking, tongue-dipping ...all in slow-motion to the rhythm of his drowsy thoughts.

Then her white thighs were locked over his hips, like a soft but demanding vise. His mind's eye saw his pulsing staff churning up into her mushy depths, saw her throw her curly-haired head up toward the ceiling as she screamed with ecstasy at the joy he was giving her, the skewering that he was pumping up and into her.

My God, he thought here on this plane, that was three months ago and I'm still remembering it.

He had probably jerked off a hundred times in his life, so why should he remember that particular masturbation?

Because I've got problems at home, that's why! he comforted himself with.

Do other men have to masturbate to get a heavy load off? The question hung in his mind like a dark, troublesome cloud. Naw, he was normal, hell, that little bitch of a nurse would cause any healthy-minded American man to jerk off. Five will get you ten Dr. Hall is screwing her ass off after hours three or four times a week.

He squirmed in his seat, his tight jockey shorts suddenly seeming tighter, for some reason or other.

Anthony Hibberd tugged a leather-covered flask of Scotch from his hip pocket and took a surreptitious gulp as soon as the jetliner reached operational height. "Just in case that smog on the coast goes to my chest!" he had told his wife when she caught him filling it from the decanter before he left for the airport.

"But you can get drinks on the plane!" Helen had protested.

"I know, baby. But only two. And it's a hell of a long way from Detroit to San Francisco ! The jet may not need to refuel on that flight, but I sure will! Besides, my seat's right at the back; it may be some time before one of those cute little stewardesses gets around to me."

Helen Hibberd had tried to smile, shaking her long blonde hair like a golden bell. But -she couldn't hide the resignation-and the hurt-that showed so often in her violet eyes these days. Anthony knew that his drinking caused her a lot of unhappiness ...but dammit, he wasn't an alcoholic, a problem drinker! He wasn't the kind of guy who allowed liquor to interfere with his business or with his family life; he was simply one of those characters who liked a good time-and who found that the good times got even better when he had a few shots of the hard stuff under his belt. What was so wrong with that?

Anyway, if his wife was honest, she'd have to admit that it wasn't really the drink that she objected to. Shit, she drank herself, didn't she? Cocktails with him before dinner, highballs or maybe brandies after, sometimes a beer out at the club on Sunday mornings. No-what really riled her was the fact that drink stimulated him, excited him, and when he was excited, well, he just couldn't wait to get his voluptuous blonde wife into the sack....

And what was so wrong about that either? Helen's curvaceous body-her broad-hipped, full-breasted, slender-waisted figure with its satiny skin-would turn on any man with red blood in him. Even now, after nineteen years of marriage, it made Anthony's cock jerk in his pants every time she walked past him in those tight-assed little pants that she wore around the house ...her full-rounded buttocks moving suggestively beneath the skin-hugging material, the seam snuggling provocatively into the crevice between her asscheeks. Forgetting where he was, he let out a low wolf whistle just at the thought of her-surprising an indignant look from a dark-haired stewardess mincing down the aisle with her tray of tea and coffee and Coke.

Hibberd ran his eyes lecherously over the girl's pert young figure, set off to advantage by the mini-skirted uniform she wore. Not bad, he mused, staring at the firmly swelling breasts straining against the trimly tailored cloth of her jacket. Not bad at all! She ought to be a great little fuck by the look of her I He unscrewed the cap of his flask and took another swig. Yes, she could be a mind-blowing screw, that one! Jeez, she looked as hot as a firecracker!

He gulped a third time and shook his head. But you never could tell, could you? Helen now-she had looked like that when she was this kid's age. Dammit, she still looked like it! She had the same sultry look she handed out from under her half-closed eyelids, the feline way she moved that was almost an invitation in itself, the lovely expressive oval of her face-Christ! She had everything! But then, when he got her into bed ...

Hibberd sucked in his breath, choked on the Scotch, and broke into a fit of coughing. The stewardess came hurrying down the aisle with an anxious expression on her pretty face. "Are you all right, sir? Is there anything I can do?"

Damn right there is, you sexy little bitch! he thought to himself. But he only said: "No, no ...thanks ...quite okay. ...Just swallowed the wrong way! ...But while you're here, can I order a Scotch with ice, please?"

"Certainly, sir. I'll be right back with it." She smiled her professional smile and minced forward to the galley.

Anthony's thoughts went back to Helen and what happened when he got her into bed. Even sitting here on this plane, God knew how many thousand feet above the Middle West, the memory made him gulp. Her legs and thighs were like the exquisitely chiseled limbs of classical statues. Her breasts were magnificent-full and swelling and firm with berry-like nipples at their tips. Her belly was subtly sculptured in a gentle contour that curved down to the tawny triangle of silken hairs at its base. How could you describe her except to say that she was breathtaking?

But it wasn't so often that he managed to get his luscious wife into bed, he thought ruefully ...not naked the way he wanted her to be. And why not? Because she was a prude, a puritan who had been brought up to believe that sex was in some way unclean and wrong. "Oh, don't! Please! Not that way, Anthony! Decent people don't do it like that! No, not tonight, darling ...I don't feel like it. ...I'm too tired, I really am...." He could hear the unending litany of excuses as if she were beside him now. He sighed and closed his eyes.

It was a pity that this aspect of his home life couldn't vanish, simply disappear, he thought to himself as the roar of the jets lulled him into a state of somnolence. It would be easier that way. But things, at least important things, were never easy. And this was about the most important damned thing in his life if he was honest about it. He would have to face it, that was all ...and he might as well face it here, sealed in a pressurized cabin hurtling through the blue at some incredible speed to take him to a business meeting in San Francisco where everything was sure to go his way as it always did. Anthony sold specialized insurance, and he was on his way to talk a shipping company into an all-embracing policy that would indemnify them against loss of perishable cargoes through industrial action, bad weather, revolutions, mechanical break-downs- you name it, he had them covered! And would pull it off, he knew; he would come home with the signed contract in his pocket and pick up a fine commission on the deal- a pocketful of loot that Helen and Shirley, his eighteen-year-old daughter, would throw away on the most expensive coats and suits and shoes and purses they could buy. But Anthony didn't care; he wanted to make them happy, and if buying that crap did the trick, that was okay by him. But he wished-dammit, he wished to hell-that he could make his lively wife happy in other ways, too. He hadn't been able to, and the thought tortured him. He opened his eyes, drained the drink that the stewardess had placed in front of him, and ordered another. At least the liquor would help him face the unpalatable facts.

Sipping the second Scotch in its cold plastic glass, he imagined himself back in his own living room the previous night, taking his first pull of the highball Helen had fixed him after dinner. She'd been walking up and down in front of him, totally oblivious of how exciting she was in that damned semi-transparent thing she'd put on "to relax in," as she said. "You don't mind, darling, do you, if I sit around in this negligee?" she had said. "I'm so tired."

And he'd been sitting there like a kid at his first strip show, staring open-eyed at her voluptuous body as his balls began to ache with longing for her, and his loins caught fire like a haystack struck by lightning. Then when he couldn't stand it any longer, he had seized her arm and thrust her, protesting tearfully, into the bedroom. Christ, he hadn't been able to help himself, the way she was looking, the way she was teasing him in that filmy thing she was wearing!

But sitting in the plane now, it hit him with the force of a thunderbolt that his wife hadn't known-she really hadn't known-that she was driving him out of his mind, swaying around half-naked like that! Sex didn't appeal to her, and it never occurred to her that it appealed to anyone else. She'd always been that way, Anthony remembered, ever since the first time he had taken her on their wedding night. She had been a virgin, of course. God knew she would never have let any man, not even her future husband, touch her before she had that precious piece of paper in her hand! And the young bridegroom had tried his best to be gentle with his lovely young wife. Even so, he had hurt her, and he had awakened in the middle of the night to find her lying by his side, her body tensed with fear, while scalding tears coursed down her cheeks as she choked back her sobs.

He hated himself then, and he had hated himself time after time since then. And that was why he had started to drink, well, maybe a little more than he should ...because he had to have Helen, and since she never responded to his advances, he had to practically force her each time. So that, somehow, every time he made love to her, she managed to make him feel like a complete heel and a bastard.

He rang for the stewardess and asked for another drink. But the pretty, briskly efficient young girl shook her head and smiled. "No more," she said. "Two's the limit and you've had that already!"

"I had five if only you knew it!" Anthony shot back at her as she traipsed away down the aisle to warm a bottle for a squalling baby at the front of the plane. If she heard him, she paid no attention, and remembering that there was still a little in his hip flask, he shrugged and reached for his back pocket.

His brain whirled a little as the fiery liquid coursed down his throat. He then settled down to review the events of the night before. So there was Helen in that sexy outfit as he dragged her into the bedroom. And of course she'd started in with the line he'd heard so often before: "Oh, please, darling, not tonight...I'm so tired. I really am."

He had turned on her in anger then. "You're tired?" he shouted, his voice harsh and brutal. "Well, I'm tired too. I'm sick and tired of this shit of yours, Helen! What d'you think I'm made of anyway, for God's sake? Iron filings? Well, let me tell you I'm not; I'm a man, goddamnit, and I'm made of flesh and blood!"

She had turned to him, white-faced, pulling that ridiculous nylon robe tight across her body as if the sheer material could somehow conceal her ripe curves. And then she had said-she had said in that tight little innocent voice that could not comprehend the agony that tore at his loins, the clawing fingers shredding his aching balls-she had said - sweetly: "Why, whatever has gotten into you tonight, dear?"

That had done it. The schoolgirl voice, the simpering expression on her face, the prim little set of her pursed lips, the affected surprise-it had all been too much for him. In a burst of rage-and in his overwhelming need-he had grabbed her and hauled her violently against him, smashing his mouth down on hers as though he were a sex fiend in a park. With a simple savage gesture, he had ripped the frail garment from her body and tossed it aside; with another, he had slammed her violently down on the bed.

As she screamed in terror, he held her pinned down with one hand while he roved lecherous fingers up and down her tense, resisting body, clutching and squeezing brutally at her soft, sensitive flesh, kneading the ripe, succulent breasts between his clawing hands. She screamed once more, her head flailing on the pillow and her long blonde hair spinning out in all directions as she cried: "Darling! Oh please, darling!" And then as she stared in disbelief, and the fright that had stunned her welled up in her eyes, he was tearing off his own clothes, unbuckling his belt, dragging down his pants, unbuttoning his shirt and dropping it to the floor. He had stood before her for a moment in his undershorts, and then these too had slid down over his hips, and she had seen his lustfully stiffened penis jutting out in front of him, throbbing with excitement.

He threw himself on her then, lifting her thighs and pressing them back against her breasts in a sudden vicious movement. As she screamed for the third time, her legs kicked out desperately in an attempt to save herself from her husband's insane assault. But Anthony had shoved his hips forward, splayed her thighs wide, and then ground his pelvis down hard against her writhing, thrashing loins. An instant later, his hand had shot down between her smooth jerking legs as he sought the pink glistening pussy flesh hidden there. With no preliminaries, he had jammed the blood-engorged head of his throbbing, aching penis up between the tender, soft lips of her unprepared vagina, ramming it into the depths of her quivering cunt.

Shrieking in pain and indignation, she had begun to plead With him. "Anthony! ...Oh darling, no! ...Not like this!"

"No?" he sneered, his sweating face poised inches above her own. "Why not?"

"B-b-because ...because ...it just isn't any good this way," she stammered helplessly.

"It isn't any good any way, is it?" Anthony snarled, staring down at his wife's fear-filled face and tortured eyes. She turned away, shuddering. "Is it?" he yelled, arching his hips and flexing the head of his huge cock in the narrow distended channel of her pussy.

"Oh yes! Y-y-yes, it is!" she cried fearfully.

"When?"

"Oh . .. lots of times."

"Like hell!" Anthony said derisively. "You just don't like to be fucked. That's it, isn't it?"

"I ...I like to make love," she said at last, wincing at the lewd four-letter word on his lips.

"Oh you enjoy making love, do you?" he mimicked ferociously. "Well, I like to fuck. And tonight, goddammit, I'm going to fuck you silly!"

A moment later his rock-hard penis was spearing deep into her warmly yielding flesh. He fucked in and out, his cock tearing into her as she moaned and gasped beneath him, helplessly impaled on the thrusting fleshly instrument battering deeper and deeper up into her nakedly quivering belly. His mind was a blank now, empty of all but a single searing thought: to spew his white-hot cum far up inside her, to ease the pressure of his bloated, sperm-filled balls, to shoot his scalding fluid the length of his lustfully pounding cock and up into her womb where it belonged, where it had always belonged.

He shuddered in a series of convulsive spasms as everything seemed to explode within him while Helen groaned and sobbed under his relentlessly heaving body. And then after the staccato squirting from his sperm-inflated penis had emptied into her, Anthony collapsed onto her still-tense form and withdrew his deflating cock with a soft sucking noise. Exhausted and satiated, he rolled over beside his wife and fell at once asleep. But even in that state of unconsciousness, the quiet sobs of the woman he loved continued to fill his ears.

Now, sitting in the plane, the whole scene returned to him, its every detail etched clearly and forever in his memory. He wiped his hand across his brow, astonished to find it covered with beads of sweat. He could still hear Helen's cries as well as his own lewd grunts and groans. Shit, what a bastard he had been! He thought of his wife again, "and a deep rush of warmth and affection welled up within him. She was weak and gentle yes, and ignorant too-and she needed to be loved and cared for. That was what he wanted to do for her ...not take her brutally the way he had last night...not treat her like a common whore ...not rape her in her own house! Oh, God, he loved her! He loved his daughter Shirley too! And he'd do anything for them, anything.

The liquor was making him sentimental.

He brushed a tear from his eye as he thought of his two beautiful girls. They were so like each other in some ways, too. Shirley already had her mother's alabaster skin and violet eyes, the promise of Helen's voluptuousness rounding out her teenage curves. But her long hair was dark like Anthony's own. Already every man who got a glimpse of her turned around to take in the sight of her high, firm breasts, her tiny waist, the sensuous swell of her hips and thighs. She was a budding beauty all right, and already so sexy-looking that the boys in the neighborhood swarmed around her like bees after honey!

Not that she'd ever given them a taste of it! Not Shirley! When she walked down that aisle on her wedding day-with her grinning old man beside her, he thought in a burst of pride-she'd be a virgin, too. His eyes misted over as he told himself: "You're a sentimental bastard!"

He wondered vaguely who it would be waiting at the altar when he took Shirley there on his arm. There was a new date-Anthony couldn't recall his name-whom he hoped would not be the lucky man. Not that pimply-faced kid! Then there were the Seifert cousins, Rudi and Dan. Rudi was going with Larry Bender's daughter, Crystal, who was pretty too . .. though nothing to put up against Shirley. And Dan? He'd been turning up at the house pretty regularly lately. He seemed to be underfoot practically all the time-sitting in the living room watching television or downstairs in the rumpus room feeding disks into the stereo. And if he wasn't there, he was rummaging in the refrigerator in the kitchen for a Coke or a sandwich of some kind. Well, maybe it would be Dan.

He looked out the window at the plane's silver wing as it slashed through the edges of a towering belt of cumulus cloud. There was something he didn't quite like about the Seifert kids, something he couldn't quite pin down. What was it? It was maybe that they seemed like characters who went out and took what they wanted, not giving a damn for the rights of others. Maybe he was being too tough on them. He remembered that their lives had hardly been a picnic. Both sets of their parents had been killed in an auto smash in California when they were still in knee pants. They'd been shunted off from one relative to another, never finding any they could get along with, let alone someone who loved them or cared enough to give them a decent home. Finally, after a year on an Indiana farm with a skinflint uncle who'd worked them practically to death, they'd moved back to town and taken a small apartment. Rudi was old enough to work now and take charge of his younger cousin who was still in school. So maybe it was hardly fair to blame them for the way they behaved today.

But feeling sorry for the boys didn't mean that he wanted his only daughter to marry -one of them. Besides, there was something else that worried him about Dan. Gradually, it seeped into his consciousness that there was a resemblance between him and the boy. Hadn't he too demanded-no, taken!-what he wanted, with no thought for her or her pleasure? Sure he had. The realization sent shivers of self-disgust down his spine. Well then, he would see to it that his kid had someone better to marry than her mother had! And he would find some way to make it up to his wife, too, for being a rotten husband!

As the jet winged on westward, he pondered just what he could do to patch things up with Helen, to give his daughter a better home. The memory of a small boutique he had seen somewhere in the Nob Hill area of San Francisco came into his mind. He had stopped in front of it once to admire a silver Mexican bracelet he had wanted to buy for Helen, a gold charm for his daughter. He'd even gone inside and then come out empty-handed, growling at the absurdity of the prices. Well, money didn't matter where his family was concerned, he decided. He would buy out the whole damned shop for them, even if it meant that he went into hock for the next year to do it. That shop and the little flower shop down the street and the lingerie store around the corner with all the frilly nonsense that his girls went overboard for. That was what he would do...

It was much later, after the plane had landed and he was on his way down the aisle toward the exit door, that he caught sight of himself in a circular, chrome-framed mirror-a still-handsome businessman, he saw, well-dressed and obviously on his way to an important meeting. But he saw too that his jowls were beginning to slacken, that his face was red and moist, and that he was perspiring from the amount of Scotch he had drunk on the flight. For an instant, he checked his stride, knowing that this was the moment of truth, the moment he had to face and which he had so long feared.

He told himself, "You know damned well that you're half-cut already, and that's going to help a lot! And you know damned well that buying out every store on the Coast isn't going to make you a better marriage. It isn't things your family wants or needs-God knows they've enough clothes and jewelry and gadgets already to stock a follies chorus! No-it's not the things that you can buy that they need: it's the things you can give them yourself! It's love and tenderness and understanding-that's what could save your marriage!"

The sexy stewardess was standing, waiting, ready to bid each passenger goodbye with her facile smile. Hibberd nodded to her absently and walked down the steps still absorbed in his thoughts. Buying things, going home laden with gifts was definitely not the way to patch things up! No. But going home itself, was! Or could be!

He would do just that! He would go home as soon as possible-and once there, he would be a different man Why, Helen would hardly know him!

Mentally, he ran through his schedule for the week he was to stay. The conferences with the shipping company were fixed for tomorrow and the day after; they were the main reason for this trip and he couldn't alter them. But his other engagements-those potential clients he might or might not talk into a deal-some he could cancel, some could wait until next time around, and some he could sandwich in between times. That way he could cut his visit short by at least a couple of days, and be home again almost before his family realized he had left!

He would do that. But he decided not to call Helen and tell of his change of plans. It would be better to surprise her and Shirley. And what a surprise it would be! he thought with a broad smile as he hurried into the terminal building to claim his baggage.