Chapter 8
Ross' phone was ringing the following night when he walked into his apartment. He kicked the door shut behind him and hurried over to pick up the burring instrument.
"This is Ross Stender, hello."
"Ross ... this is Rosemary."
"Hi, Rosemary," he said, very surprised. She had never called him. With her old-fashioned upbringing and concepts, she was just not the "kind of girl" who called a man. He glanced around, then sat on the edge of the bed. He wished to hell she'd waited a couple of minutes more; he sure could use a beer.
"Did I ... disturb anything, Ross?"
"Nothing but taking off my coat I was just coming in the door."
"Oh. I thought you got home earlier."
"I'm learning that being assistant office manager means that if you get through early, you stay in the office. And if you're not quite through with something that Sales needs, you stay and finish it."
She laughed-dutifully, he thought. "Not all a bed of roses, hmmm!"
"Responsibility brings, ah ... well, responsibility. Sorry. That's the best I can do at the end of a busy day." What the hell do you want, Rosemary? Another movie and a nice sweet kiss at the door?
"Ross, I, uh, I need to talk with you."
I'm right here, and I'm listening. Would you do me a favor and hang on while I get a beer out of the fridge? I'm bushed, and I'm not in the bracket when I can stop at a bar on the way home, yet"
"Oh, of course, Ross."
Laying the phone on the bed, he shucked off his coat on the way over to the fridge. He returned with a can in hand, and he didn't pick up the phone again until he'd enjoyed the best draught of all: that long, first one. With an appreciative sigh, he returned to Rosemary.
"Too bad you're not here to enjoy one with me," he said. 'It sure and hell hits the spot"
"Yes," she said in a soft voice, "too bad I'm not. Would you like me to be?"
He lifted his eyebrows at his own reflection in the mirror. What the hell...?"
He chuckled. There was a new confidence in him, a man with two women who had found a male and grooved on him. "I hope you'll pardon me if I say that sounds like a loaded question, Rosemary."
There was a long silence. She was waiting for him to go on. He decided not to say a word. Its your dime, Rosie, he mused.
"Ross?"
"Right here."
I've ... I've been thinking, Ross. A whole lot. A whole lot. That's why I called. I've been doing a lot of thinking."
"Um-hm," he said, sipping from his cold can. And whatever you've been thinking about, he thought, it sure is hard for you to say it!
"About ... about things," Rosemary said. And she waited again. Ross waited. He didn't like people that called you and then waited for you to talk them up before they got down to their reason for dialing or buttoning in the first place.
"I, uh," she said at last, "was ... wondering. You still want to show me your apartment? I mean ... umm...." She tried to sound light, suddenly, talking with a forced lilt in her voice. "I mean do you have enough beer for two?"
He thought about that. What the hell had she decided? Could it be...? He made a lecherous face at himself in the mirror, then grinned at the ridiculousness of it.
"Rosemary...."
"Oh gosh. You have other plans."
I'm just ... I'm surprised. Maybe you ... how about telling me what's bothering you."
Silence. Then: "Don't you know? I mean ... what I said? Like ... I'll come to your apartment"
"Okay. It's a pretty decent little place. Other people have been here. None of them got bitten or attacked, so far."
"Oh, Ross!" she said, in exasperation.
Poor baby, he thought. She can't even say it. Well, if it's what she's thinking about, we'll get it out into the open. And if it isn't-she sure won't call again, after I say it!
So he said it. "Rosemary-you looking to get laid?" The telephone gasped in his ear. "Oh, Ross ... how crude!"
Mentally, Ross Stender threw up his hands. Oh, shit!
"Yeah. There are a lot of other ways I could phrase the question, Rosemary. But I did get it said, now, didn't I? Rosemary? That question's still hanging in the air."
She sighed. "Don't ... don't you ... umm, think I should?"
"Sure! Everybody should. It's never hurt me any!" He only just heard her gulp. He turned up his beer. "Have ... have you made love with ... with a lot of girls, Ross?"
"No," he said truthfully, "I haven't. I haven't even made love with a lot of women. Just ... some experience, that's all. It's normal, you know."
Her voice was a whisper. "Yes. I ... know. I think so. Well, ah ... "
"Hell, Rosie, the trouble is you're so hungup you can't even talk about it! You can't even come out and say it. I don't mean words like fuck or screw, but anything. You called me up, and you caught me coming right in the door. But you don't want to come out and say anything."
I'm ... scared," she admitted in a tiny voice.
"Of getting rid of that troublesome cherry or of telling me?"
"I ... uh ... both."
He turned his head and held the phone against his shirt while he chuckled. And he did some hard fast thinking. What was right? What was wrong? What was his relationship, his understanding with Hank and Beejo? And how emotionally involved might Rosemary get-hell, suppose he did, with her?
He put the phone back to his ear again. There was only silence. He sat there and finished his beer and wondered if he'd rather have something to eat and about three more beers and flake out, after last night's wild activity right here in this room, or call Beejo or Hank or both, or ... tell Rosemary to come on over.
He didn't know. He felt that there was some sort of ethics involved, but he was damned if he could figure it out with a firmness of mind. Ethics, he mused, and morality, are ... weakeners!
"Ross?"
"Right here listening, Rosemary." And he added cruelly, "Getting hungry!"
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said tinily, sounding pitiful. "Well, do you want ... oh, Ross I'm trying to talk!"
He sighed. In a quiet, soothing voice he said, "Rosemary, I want to be sure you know ... I don't love you, Rosie."
"I know!"
"Oh. Okay. I just ... thought I ought to say it."
"Oh, Ross! You're really honorable, aren't you? Good lord, all the men in this town ... all the things I hear, from other ... would you like to make love with me, Ross?"
And so there it was. On the line. She'd said it, or at least she'd said it as explicitly as she could. He had to give her credit, had to admire her for that. She'd overcome a lot, to say that. She might make it after all. She might actually get to be a people. He hadn't really thought she would. Just another poor little hungup girl who'd Save It and have it taken without finesse on her wedding night, so that then she and some asshole could go through life making each other quietly miserable, not quite to the point of desperation.
And now it was up to him. And he thought about Hank and Beejo. And honor, or morals, or ethics, whatever all that meant.
I'd love to, Rosemary."
He heard her sigh.
"But ... I don't think I should. I don't believe it's the right way or the right time."
After a long silence, her voice came back stiff and stilted, straining for firmness. "Sorry I bothered you, Ross. Good-bye."
"Good luck, Rosemary. Goodb-" But she'd already hung up.
I oughtta kick my ass all over this goddamn apartment, he thought, putting the phone down and striding to the fridge for another cold one. I am a goddamn disgrace to machismo and the male mystique and centuries of admiration for Don Juan and Casanova and Errol Flynn!
A few minutes later that thought got doubled, in spades.
He opened his door to go down to Hank's apartment, feeling like a great big hero. She and some guy were just coming out of her door, both of them all duded up, and she was just turning back to double-check her door before they went out.
Ross closed his door and stood there, listening to them pass. He heard her giggle.
Asshole! he told himself, and picked up the phone. He'd call down there, rather than go, then. He'd call Beejo. We, he thought, are gonna have some kind of wild night!
She answered. She floundered. Oh-uh-um. She was just on her way out....He stood there just inside his door, finishing his beer, and in about twenty minutes he heard her and her guy leaving.
He tossed off the rest of that second beer and gazed at the telephone.
Poor rejected Rosemary, he thought. Poor lonesome Ross.
And he thought, Calling her now would he an utter bastardly thing to do! Also ... it'd just get you turned down.
He considered giving her a break, calling her to give her that chance to tell him to buzz off. He didn't.
He had a marvelous meal of four pieces of bologna and a chunk of Cracker Barrel cheese and a third beer. Then, restless as hell, he decided to go wear himself out by swimming up a storm.
He stripped, donned trunks and trousers and a shaving robe, and slung a towel over his shoulder. Then, making certain he had his keys in his pocket, he went out. He glanced down at their door with level eyes. And decided to walk clear back and down to the basement recreation center. For the exercise, maybe, or maybe to make certain he didn't somehow run into one of them somewhere.
He made that first legging journey, punched the elevator button on that end, and rode down to One with a couple that necked unashamedly in the corner and a tall thin girl who kept looking at him.
Then he started striding back, the length of the first floor.
He was about eight feet this side of I'll when some body inside screamed. He paused, told himself to stay the hell out, and walked on.
The door of I'll was jerked open just after he passed it.
"Help! Oh help!"
Ross spun around. Fleeting impression: Female. Long blonde hair, slightly wavy and minimally curled on the ends. Piquant, pretty face, deep set eyes. Vertically striped shirt, some sort of shiny fabric. Tight pants, also shiny, flaring from the knees down. Bare feet: painted, frosty-pink toenails. Frantically waving hands. Smoke. The smell of burning.
Ross ran to her. She was practically jumping up and down, streaming tears and white as a ghost and stabbing frantically back into her apartment with one shaking finger. He stepped sidewise past her into her apartment. It was just like his, but with a wine-colored rug and oyster-white walls and striped furniture-covered with the same shiny stuff as her shirt.
And flames, crackling and leaping and hissing, all around the pan on the pull-down range, spewing smoke up at the ceiling.
He ran to it, dragging his towel off his shoulder. He plopped it down onto the pan, which was bubbling wildly. Then he picked it up, towel, pan and all, and rushed into the bathroom with it. He bent over to set it in the tub, but the heat was already coming through the towel, and he dropped the pan from a distance of about six inches. It made a hell of a clatter.
He swung back and returned at the gallop of start jerking open the doors of the cabinets built into the same wall as the range and fridge and oven. Flames still danced and crackled on the range. He found the cylindrical blue box and was jerking up the tab as he swung to the range.
He dumped salt on the fire. It went quickly out.
He blew out a long sigh and set down the salt on the drain of the diminutive sink. Then he turned to the girl. His heart was pounding.
"Wow! You're won-derful!"
He grinned. "Just in time not to get supper, though."
She had a hand against the heaving front of her blouse. Her pants, he saw, were suede cloth, that no-wale corduroy stuff that looked like velvet. They were zipped front, the fly pooched slightly out with a cute little belly. A gold-buttoned tab held them shut and three more gold buttons ran up the side seam of each flared leg.
She looked like the kind of girl everybody turned around to gaze, after, on the street-and the kind of girl waiters and waitresses and liquor-store countermen always asked for her ID. She looked about sixteen.
With her hand still against her breast, she sank weakly down in a chair. She was gasping and he knew her heart was pounding just as hard as his was. The adrenalin was beginning to wear off-and so was the beer, damn it, and he began to feel a little shaky in the legs.
"I ... I was deep-frying some potatoes and had to ... uh, answer the phone."
Sure, he thought, without smiling. The bathroom light was on. She'd had to go answer the call of nature, that's what. Not the sort of thing you say to a strange man, won-derful or not.
"Then it ... it ... the grease boded over, I guess, and ... started a fire!"
He nodded. "Yeah, that happens. No harm done, I think. The bathtub won't scorch." He glanced up. "You may have to work on that ceiling with a ladder and a little Comet or something, though, or you may get trouble about your deposit when you get ready to move."
She looked up at it. "Oh, how awful!"
"It's washable paint, and that's just smudges from grease smoke. It'll come off." He walked back to the bathroom and pulled his towel away from the pan in the tub. The towel was ruined. The pan was a blackened mess. The tub was okay, and the potatoes looked as if they'd survive.
"Unless you have a thing about potatoes out of the bathtub," he said, "I think you can go on cooking supper."
She looked at him, then got up and walked over. She went into the bathroom and looked into the tub. "Ugh! To hell with it!" She turned. "I think I'll just have a sandwich or a frozen dinner and drink myself into a stupor." She was quite close, and quite short. She looked up at him with sky blue eyes so deep set they shouldn't have been as wide and girlish as they were. "Oh, look at you! You were on your way down for a swim!"
"I, uh, think I'll forget it. I've had enough exercise."
"Oh, and your towel's ruined!"
He didn't say anything. It had been a good towel, and he had spent a couple of bucks on it. But he wasn't about to lament it in front of her.
She blew out her lips. "Phew! Lordy. I need a drink. I'll bet you wouldn't turn one down, would you, knight in shining armor?"
"I probably wouldn't."
"Listen," she said, wiggling over to the kitchen area. "I sure am glad you came along. I just went all scared and tense. That's never happened before. I'm a good cook.
He stood there admiring her back and the cute, smallish jut of her very round buttocks under the suede-like pants. "You sew, too."
She swung around with a bottle of Calvert's gin in her hand. "How'd you know?"
"Your blouse matches the covers on the furniture. I never saw a set like that."
She looked down at herself, doubling a chin too clean cut to double without a lot of pressure. On her, it was just cute.
"Oh, yeah. You're right. Are you a detective?"
He laughed. "No! I work in an office."
"Oh. Hey, I'm sorry ... Kathy Hardin."
"Hi, Kathy Hardin. I'm Ross Stender. I live up on Seven."
"Well, sit down, for heaven's sake. "You're my hero! Let me lay a Martini on you."
He went over and sat down on the couch. She had no dining room furniture, and had her bed fancily covered and festooned with varicolored pillows. The couch-several shades of blue and gray stripes, like her blouse-was also pillow strewn. Most of them were various blues, but the port-colored one picked up the color of the rug.
"You cook, and you sew, and this place is so nicely decorated it doesn't look like Heston Building. Kathy Hardin, you must be a decorator or something.
She laughed. "Ha! I'm assistant display manager at Berry's. Assistant display manager means there's just her and me and I do whatever she says. Like make signs on the damned machine in the basement. And sell in the Mod Shop on Saturdays." She sighed. "That may not last. I wore this blouse last Saturday and two different customers said they wanted one like it!"
She came over to him with two stemmed glasses precariously entwined in the fingers of her left hand and a pitcher half full of Martinis in her right. She was waggling it with a circular motion of her arm, so that the ice made tinging noises against the glass. He had noted that both gin and vermouth were in the fridge, and she had measured her mixture to a precise three to one ratio.
"Oh oh," she said, and held out the hand with the glasses. He extricated them, one after the other. And held them, while she poured.
"Oops!" She had managed to slosh a little on his foot. On his way to the pool, he had worn only woven nylon shoes, Florida shoes, without socks. He jerked his foot involuntarily; that stuff was cold.
I'm a total washout, you know it? Burned the 'taters and got the glasses tangled up-wonder I didn't break one-and now I've frozen your foot! Listen, you have really nice hair, you know it?"
He smiled, looking at the glasses he still held outstretched. She'd poured them both brim-full. "It's hair," he said.
"Well, let's see if I can give my rescuer a kiss without screwing up." She made a face. "I mean goofing up! Here." She bent over and kissed him. Held his arms out on either side of her. Each hand was desperately clutching a very full glass of Martini.
Her lips were very warm, arid they moved over his mouth. She made a little humming sound. Her eyes were closed. Her lashes were beautifully long. The top two buttons of her blouse was undone, and the shadowy cleavage between her breasts was beautiful. Her breath was sweet and her hair soft when it fell against his face. The kiss was long, and warm, and very nice.
The Martini she poured on his crotch was very cold.
"Yow!" he yelped, and jerked violently.
"Omigosh!" She jerked back. Her hip knocked one full glass spinning from his hand. She jerked reflexively away from that arm and her other hip nudged his other wrist, already wobbling precariously. She got half a glass of Martini down her pants leg.
"Yipe!" she cried, jerking violently. Her other hip slapped his other, now empty, hand. The Martini pitcher swung dangerously over his legs and its contents sloshed in oily smears up the sides of the pitcher.
"Everybody freeze!" he said.
She froze. Her hip felt unconditionally firm and warm and very welcome against his palm. She stared down at him with bright eyes. The contents of the pitcher stopped sloshing but continued to ripple with her shaking hand.
Drawing his other arm in slowly, he set the glass to his lips and drank. Good. Cold. Welcome, stinging cold down his throat and splashing into his stomach to melt and become fervid heat that was also very welcome.
He held out the glass. "Just in case we don't get out of this alive, here, drink the rest of this one. And I want you to know that I've always loved you, Katasha, and if this is it ... well I'm glad we're going out together."
She accepted the glass and he quickly took the pitcher. She started to drink, but burst out laughing instead. He was profoundly glad he'd taken the pitch er. Her hip quivered against his hand with her laughter.
"You are wonderful!" she cried, and she drank off the rest of the Martini.
"A little damp in the, ah, lap," he said.
She lowered the glass, blinking. She sighed, and what that did to her breasts inside the blouse was a delight to watch. "Oh, damn! You know what I'm going to do?"
I'm afraid even to think about it," Ross admitted.
I'm g-going to cry!"
"Oh, please don't! No use crying over spilt gin!"
She tried to laugh, didn't make it, and started crying. Enormous glistening tears rushed quivering down her cheeks.
"Oh, oh, damn!" she quavered out, sobbing piteously.
Ross already had a big hand on the fine swell of her hip. It was a simple matter and only natural for him to pull her down to hold her. She cuddled very nicely and warmly-although the pressure of her bottom on his lap pressed his jock against his genitals, and he was treated to a renewed sensation of cold wetness. And she wept.
"I-I ... I'mmm jjust a da-a-a-amned washout!"
"You are an absolutely beautiful and doll-like girl who is into a bad night," he told her, stroking her back.
She burrowed closer. "Good God, where-r-r-r-r've you been all m-m-m-my life?!"
Dry, he thought. But he sure and hell didn't say it. He had both arms full of marvelous woman flesh with the face, of a girl and the body of a teen temptress. He was content to keep things that way for awhile.
She settled down at last, sniffling. "Damn, what a fool I am! Here, let me see if I can do any better with nothing in my hands."
She did. She kissed hell out of him. His breathing began to heighten. His heartbeat began to step up again. So did hers, in both cases. One hard breast was trying to drill a hole in the front of his terry shaving robe, one of those shorty affairs that barely covered his crotch. Unfortunately, it didn't when he sat, or the towel-fabric might have soaked up the cold gin and vermouth she'd poured on him.
She pulled away at last, and they were both panting and clinging to each other. "Good ... gosh!" She wiggled a little, as if trying to burrow right in to him. "You really are something else! Right up on seven, huh?"
He nodded. She shook her head in distress.
"And me down here on one, with no one to put out my fires and pour Martinis on and kiss and ... oh! The Martinis! We're both wet!"
He had to laugh. His emotions were ambivalent. He was wet, and it was uncomfortable. But her remembering would mean breaking up the very comfortable seating arrangement. She had the warmest waist he'd ever felt. And very supple.
She looked around, frowning.
"You wearing trunks under your pants?"
"Uh-huh."
"I was afraid of that. Wet through. I hoped maybe you had your trunks in your pocket, or something. Boy. I sure don't have any men's pants around here. You'd play hell fitting in mine, tool Oh, hell! What're we going to do?"
"Sweat it," he said, "and have a Martini."
She laughed and started to get up. He hung on. She turned large blue eyes back on him.
"Um, we don't have to move," Ross said. "Pitcher's right here, and we can share a glass."
She giggled and kissed him. "But you're wet!"
"But you're sitting on it, and you're nice and warm."
"But I'm getting wet too, Ross!"
He had the Martini pitcher in his hand. "Well, maybe we'd better all take off our pants."
She glanced around. "All?" Then she sighed and held the glass while he poured. He was careful not to fill it up. "But if we both take off our pants, we'll just wind up making it. I mean, I think I'm nutty about you."
That shook him, the first part more than the last, but he managed to say, "I think you're nutty, period."
"Oh gosh. You're right." She sighed. "Here. Hold this."
He held the glass. He also put the pitcher back on the end table. And he stared, as Kathy got up and took off her shiny no-wale corduroy pants. She wore white briefs, lowslung and highcut, and her shirttails didn't quite cover them. She bent over him with a hand on his shoulder, touched his lips with hers, and took the glass.
"Your turn."
Ross got up and took off his pants.
"Oh, I like your trunks," she said. She cocked her head, standing there looking like something out of one of those old Debbie Reynolds movies, naked legs rounding beautifully below the tails of her shiny, striped blouse. "But they're wet, too."
He nodded. He took them off.
"Hey, that's a ... that's a jockstrap! Isn't it?"
"That's what it is." He took the glass and enjoyed a sip.
"I never saw one before. Boy, they're sexy, aren't they!"
"Uh-huh, I guess, I never thought about it. Did you know the tail of your blouse is wet?"
She lifted it to look. "Oh, wow, so it is!" And she unbuttoned the blouse and peeled it off. He got the shock of his life. She wasn't wearing a bra. She'd felt like she was!
"Good lord," he said. "You felt like you were wearing a bra!"
"Yes, isn't it nice?" She looked proudly down at herself.
Her perfectly molded cones of breasts jutted straight out from her chest, slightly to each side. The soft nipples were a lovely eggshell pink. "I got a real break, I think! I mean-they just stand there! They look very good under clothes, and they don't give me any trouble at all. You know, like flopping and swinging and all. Say ... you know ... your jockstrap's wet, too."
He nodded. "Yes, I've noticed. Got a towel?"
"There's this nice old gold one in there in the bathtub," she said, standing there in nothing but a pair of skimpy white panties that looked painted on. She was grinning. "But it is scorched a little, and there's some grease on it."
"I'm about ready to turn you over my knee," Ross said. He finished off the Martini. It, combined with the sight of her, spread a lovely warm glow all through him.
She pursed her lips. "Hmm ... I really doubt that I'd like that. Got any other ideas?"
"Yeah. Turn around."
She blinked, lifted an eyebrow, and turned around. God, what beautiful little ass cheeks! They looked like two cereal bowls firmly applied to her lower back, straining out the cloth of her panties.
"Just as I thought," he said. "Your pants're wet."
"Oh," Kathy said, and took them off.
He watched the magnificent action of her legs and her butts, which tightened on first one side, rising, and then on the other as she stripped down her panties and stepped out of them. She flipped them into the air as she turned. She faced him with a pleasant, eyebrows-up look. Again he stared. The bulge of her cunt didn't have enough hair on it to stuff a thimble made for a child.
She sighed. "Don't you dare stand there and tell me I look like a little girl. I am twenty-two years old and I can prove it!"
He scratched his head. "All right, I won't. You've heard that before, hm?"
"I have. Miss Sellmeyer, at the store, put the make on me the other night when we were supposed to be dressing the windows. She told me I looked like a child."
"Miss Sellmeyer. Was that nice?"
She shrugged, and her bare breasts barely moved. Each, he mused, was about hand size. And what marvelous handfuls! "It was all right," Kathy said. "I'll bet you're better."
"I think I'd better get out .of this wet supporter," he said.
"You know the first time I ever heard my older brother say something about an athletic supporter, I thought it was someone who cheered at ballgames. He had to explain to me what a jock was ... oh! That's a big one!"
"Come here, Kathy," he said, naked but for his short robe, and he flung that off. "I thought you'd never ask," she said, coming.