Chapter 3
The knocker felt as heavy as solid gold. Rick liked the heft of it in his hand so he raised it and let it fall again. Knock.
The door was opened by a flat-nosed, heavy-set black lady, possibly forty," possibly sixty. She wore a dark blue uniform with white lace around the wrists and throat. She scowled at Rick, asked incongruously, "Yes, sir?"
Rick was unsure of what to say. An image of himself blurting out, "I'm here to screw the Madam" crossed his mind, but he chased it away with a wry smile. "I'm Rick Temple. I believe Mrs. Witherdine is expecting' me."
The scowl on the black woman's face changed to disdain. She said rather abruptly, "Use the back door please. I'll let you in." She closed the heavy oak door in Rick's face.
I'll be damned, he thought. Well, if that's the way they want it, what the hell do I care. He walked down the front steps and followed a brick path around the corner of the house, past the lilacs and blooming holly-hocks. He imagined generations of deliverymen, paper boys, and cocksmen using that path year after year. "The back door, please." He didn't think that would last very long, not with him.
Rick thought he was ready for the old lady. He ,had stopped by Elizabeth Cruise's house on the way over. She had walked partway along the beach with him.
"If I had the nerve," Elizabeth had said, "I'd keep you to myself all summer."
"You could if you wanted to," Rick had said. He had wanted her nerve to fail. He 'wanted her to do exactly as she was doing, send him to someone higher on the social ladder, onward and upward.
"It's better this way," she said. "I know I can't see you enough this summer to keep you happy. It would be very dangerous for me if I tried. And I wouldn't want you running around to these local floozies and coming back to me. It's better to send you on your way, like a good little boy, and remember you kindly."
"Will you?"
"You know I will."
To prove it she took his hand and drew him into the protective shelter of the thick undergrowth that provided ballast for the shifting beaches along that part of the coast. She knelt in front of him, unzipped the fly of his slacks, and reached in for his penis.
She sucked on the tip until it was hard, rose thick in her mouth. She pumped her thumb and forefinger back and forth along the shaft. Rick thought she wanted him to come in her mouth and he was afraid he might not be able to get it up for Mrs. Witherdine if he did, so he held back as much as he could. His prick grew larger, thicker, and Elizabeth's head pumped up and down, her breath coming in suctions. She was careful not to soil his slacks with her saliva.
Rick was afraid he would come. He wanted to pull back, but he also wanted to shoot off in "Elizabeth's mouth.
He remembered how after they had fucked in front of the fire, after Elizabeth had sucked him awhile, they had gone into her bedroom and fucked until they were both exhausted. Then, to revive themselves, they both took showers, and after Elizabeth soaped Rick's body from top to bottom and rinsed him off she sat down on the edge of the tub and with the shower water flooding ', her face had slipped his prick into her mouth and got him hard again. She had made him finish, that time. She sucked him until her throat accepted nearly all of his long cock. She kept squeezing his balls, kneading them like soft dough, and when he began moving his ass to the rhythm of her sucking she released his balls and ran both hands between `his legs, slid her wet palms up the cheeks of his ass, and she held him like that, her fingers against the small of his back, her forearms spreading his ass, her upper arms spreading his thighs, his balls hanging between them, his cock sucked into her mouth, her lips grasping it, her breath gasping, her cheeks sucking at his shaft. He had had to hold the curtain rod for support when he came. His orgasm reached from his knees. His come burst against her throat that time like spurts from a water pistol. She had swallowed it all.
This time, on the beach, just when he thought he couldn't hold it anymore, she let him go. He relaxed away from her. She wiped her saliva off his cock with her handkerchief.
"Mrs. Witherdine is going to like you," Elizabeth said.
"You've got me ready, thanks for that. I damn near let you have it all right then."
"I could tell. Thank you for having such a cock and for being willing to use it. A lot of kids your age want to fuck but they just don't seem to get around to it."
"Does Shawn?" Rick asked.
"I don't know," Mrs. Cruise answered. "I don't think so. At least, I don't think he does."
Rick raised his hand to knock on the back door but the maid opened it before his knuckles could descend.
She asked, closing the door behind him, "You going to be a friend to my Missus?"
Rick answered, "Possibly. I haven't met her yet."
"You seen her, though, haven't you?"
"Yes. A few times when her chauffeur drove her through the resort."
"Did you like what you saw?" The black woman's eyes bored into Rick's face, burned the back of his neck.
"I liked the car," Rick said.
"Ha ha ha." The black woman roared with laughter. "Ha ha. Oh boy, you are a friend already." She gestured with her heavy gray palms for Rick to follow her.
She led the way up a narrow flight of back stairs that opened off the kitchen. Rick followed her, her broad beam swinging almost in his face. He thought he liked her, and her humor, but he would have to do something about her making him come around to the back door.
They emerged on the second floor of the house, in a wide hallway with doors opening off it into bedrooms where beds had been made up for guests. The furniture seemed permanent, as if it had been in the house for a century. It was heavy, solid, permanent. If the house were ever sold, the furniture would have to go with it. A thick carpet, which ended along the mahogany wood-work, muffled their footsteps.
The maid stopped at a closed door and rapped softly. "Missus?"
"Yes, Marie?"
"Mr. Temple is here."
"Fine. Please show him in."
Marie opened the door. It swung on silent hinges.
Mrs. Witherdine sat at a frail, ornate French desk. It was the same desk from which she ran the Witherdine fortune.
She smiled as Rick came into the room. Laying down her fountain pen, she rose, crossed the room with a swift, graceful motion, her long dress sweeping the carpet. She held out her hand for Rick.
He felt suddenly clumsy, as if he was about to tip over an expensive vase, or stumble into an antique chair that would not hold him but collapse into a pile of splinters. Marie left the room so silently that Rick was not sure she was gone until he looked around for her and couldn't find her. He wished for a moment that he had been able to go with her, back downstairs to the kitchen where it was comfortable to throw back your head and laugh, where you might slam a door if you felt like it.
Mrs. Witherdine recognized his uneasiness. She gestured to a comfortable chair, one with heavy arms and a thick cushion. "Will you sit down, please?"
Rick sat down, feeling awkward because she remained standing. She studied him a moment longer, then pulled one of the frail-looking antiques across the carpet and sat down close enough for her to rest her hand on the arm of Rick's chair.
"Mrs. Cruise spoke very highly of you."
"Thank you," Rick said. He had a chance to look at her. He liked what he saw. Her hair was gray but very thick. She wore it swept over her high broad forehead. Rick imagined she had been a brilliant woman in her day, probably still was. It took brilliance to run the Witherdine fortune the way she had. Her eyes were sharp, well-focused, and reminded him oddly of Marie's eyes. Then he realized how natural it would have been for Mrs. Witherdine to have hired a black woman with as much spunk and fire as herself. Mrs. Witherdine looked strong. She was tall, thin but not wispy. The image he had received when he saw her being driven by her chauffeur had been that of a frail old lady barely able to get around. The Mrs. Witherdine who sat before him now looked as if she could give him, or anybody, a run for their money.
He gave her his. best smile. "Mrs. Cruise spoke highly of you too," he said, touching her hand that rested on the arm of his chair. She did not pull her hand back, or resist him in any way.
"That's nice, isn't it. Elizabeth thinks highly of us both."
She shocked Rick by reaching across him with her other hand to stroke his cheek. Then she slapped him gently, swiftly. "No need to fool around, is there? With you, I mean? We both know why you're here, don't we?"
"I suppose we do," he said.
"Suppose?" Her voice was sharp, used to dealing with men and getting her own way about it as well. "What do you mean, suppose? We won't get anywhere if you insist on being coy." She asked ; again, "Do you know why you're here?"
"Yes," he said a little too quickly.
"I can't get around to meet young men, as I'd like to. It's just not done by women of my station of life. And I don't appreciate the simps from the cities I could hire. I can't stand a simpering bastard hanging around all day. Lord, I can't bear that. And anybody worth a damn that I'd have around all the time would soon be trying to get his hand into my money pot, you can bet on that."
She stood up abruptly, strode around the room. A single bed stood along one wall, covered with a canopy, four carved mahogany posts rising from the white spread. Rick knew that bed must have cost a fortune when it was new, a century ago; to buy it now would have cost two fortunes, at least.
Mrs. Witherdine suddenly turned back to him. "Are you sure you know why you're here?"
Rick stood up himself. He did not want her to think he was one of those simpering bastards. "Yes," he said clearly.
"Good. We've got that out of the way. To keep you from getting ideas about my money pot, I simply won't let you hang around all the time. I'll just use you when I need you. I don't want you to move in here, or quit your job or anything out of the ordinary. I simply want you to be free to come by here whenever I call for you and visit with me awhile. Is that arrangement satisfactory to your "If I keep my job, I'll be spending a lot of time sailing, teaching kids."
"Nothing wrong with that. I'm not a bitch in heat that I have to be serviced immediately." She smiled, a bit coy herself. "I get warmer as I wait. Tell me, is that arrangement satisfactory to you?"
Rick seemed about to speak, then did not.
She said, "If you're hesitating because of doubts about any remuneration, don't. You have nothing to worry about in that respect. Take my word for it."
"All right," Rick said. "You look like a woman who can be trusted. But don't you want a sort of trial run first? Do you trust me?"
Mrs. Witherdine began to smile. "I don't trust you at all, young man. Or any young man. But I trust Elizabeth Cruise and she said that you are good. That's enough for me."
Rick nodded. "We've struck a bargain then."
She laughed, her head tilting back toward her shoulders, her mouth jerking open and shut abruptly. "Fine," she cried. "That's fine, fine."
She moved toward Rick with a look in her eyes unlike anything Rick had ever seen before, a hunger he had never witnessed in the eyes of any of the girls who had lowered themselves under his body. Mrs. Witherdine said again, "That's fine," as she came closer, her tongue passing across her lips leaving a shining gleam of moisture.