Chapter 8
"She looks adorable," said a woman's voice.
Susanne looked at the girl in the hall mirror. That was what Nelsa had said when Henri had finished with her. Too bad Danny couldn't see her tonight with a mop of silvery curls, as short as a baby's.
"Thank you," she managed.
Maggie pushed forward. "Miss Graton planned this surprise for you, Miss Susanne, so's you could meet some of her friends. Dinner's ready; buffet; to your left, if you please."
Susanne met Ranalee Graton's eyes. The girl looked completely bowled over. Why, the poor thing! Hadn't she learned one couldn't play a miserable joke on another without the stain coming off on one's own hands?
So this was why Henri, white with fatigue, had demanded she remain and let him bleach and then curl her hair. He had known. How? Maggie's laugh.
Ranalee had misgauged Susanne in another area. She hadn't known group participation was more prevalent in small towns than in cities.
Thank goodness Leehoff had refused her last-minute invitation; last-minute because she had been afraid to invite him earlier. She had so hoped to show him that this Susanne Morgan would be a complete loss in the political career he was forging for himself. Maggie, calmly turning her blessed kitchen over to the catering staff, retreated to her room and left the door slightly ajar.
"Ran, honest-" came a hiss, and Maggie's ears pricked up. "Well, she did look dreadful when she came from under the dryer. Had Nadia not been so furious at her friend for trying to make her use that stuff, she would have paid her for her sacrifice."
And again, "But she did! I mean that purple hair stuck out like wire, and her face-well, that shade and her face-"
Later there was resentment. "I'm beginning to think this power you use as a big stick is all talk. Go ahead and tell your father. I can't think Dad has done anything so socially indiscreet it could affect his appointment."
Maggie debated seeking another aerie where she might watch Susanne, then shook her head. Susanne was Miss Mary's niece, wasn't she?
Ranalee had chosen her guests with what her father would have labeled "malice aforethought." They were the young hopefuls socially insecure, who believed the way up the ladder of social success was through social gymnastics. "Taking advantage of opportunities," they would label the gyrations.
Susanne recognized the type immediately. Even small towns harbored them. In the charitable organizations she had headed, they were the most indefatigable workers if personal publicity was assured.
Cheerfully she set about coping with them.
The bolder asked about the purple hair. "How does your head feel now?"
Susanne patted the curls. "Tender," she replied. "Henri marinated it in oil both before and after the bleach. How fortunate to have such a consummate dermatologist on the staff of the salon. I could have come out looking like a wire brush."
Deliberately Ranalee steered the conversation to political economy and then wished she hadn't. Susanne had no time for personalities; she depended upon principle.
A thoughtful Maggie signaled, and Susanne made her way past a doorway to be handed a scribbled note.
Danny had telephoned. He would call later. But the note contained something more.
To her guests she could apologize for "a long distance call." The note went into the fireplace. But she was ready when the party broke up early.
Ranalee was now eager for the guests to leave. She called attention to Susanne's weariness. The little girl had had a trying day.
"Thank you," Susanne said to practically every girl present, and to two young husbands. "You will understand my not accepting outside social engagements until after March?" She sought Maggie the moment the last guest had left. "Thank goodness you alerted me. I wouldn't have known how to refuse without fracturing the social amenities."
"Did you want to accept?" Maggie asked. "Miss Mary would be the last to ask you to observe a period of mourning."
"No. I don't want to become a cause celebre. They have such a short duration. Oh, Maggie, am I ever tired!"
She was still tired the next morning when she stumbled into the kitchen in a robe, silver curls tousled, looking, Maggie thought, like a wise child.
"Maggie, why does Ranalee hate me enough to plan an affair like last night's?"
"Meanin' you've no illusions about that? Good. Well, Miss Graton's been raised in the political arena. She enjoys a good fight. Bein' a girl with a father like hers, she can't get into the ring, so she's looked around, spotted the best young hopeful and wants himself for herself."
Susanne looked as puzzled as she felt.
"Bert Leehoff," Maggie explained.
"But he's only my attorney," Susanne protested. "Are they engaged?"
Maggie shook her head. "Not that I've heard. Figure maybe she plans to keep him in a 'just your attorney' stage till she can wangle an engagement."
Susanne ran her hand through the short-cropped curls. "How silly can you get? Why, Bert Leehoff only sees me as a signature on the Hair-After business documents."
"Hm," said Maggie.
But Susanne was bothered by the prospect of Ranalee snaring Bert.
She drove up before the Hair-After, at the loading zone, eased out and went on to her costly parking area, to walk back, literally kicking herself every step of the way.
Imagine being so concerned about two persons who meant absolutely nothing to her she'd expect parking space in front of the salon at that hour. She'd better attend to business.
She did. He was waiting for her when she entered, ripped off a postage-stamp beret and ruffled her hair.
"Oh, I didn't see you," she stammered.
"I saw you, and now I see what a couple of chaps were raving about. But, Susanne, are you sure you're old enough to sign these papers? Shouldn't we have a guardian appointed for you? Preferably me?"
She looked at the girl in the mirror and laughed. "Isn't it amazing what hair styling and color can do to a person? Outside, that is."
"Now you're going Miss Mary on me," he charged.
"Perhaps. But had you seen me for the first time this morning, would you have thought I had a brain to my head?"
"I would have known after a brief conversation."
Solemnly she shook her head. "Not had I decided otherwise. Y'know, that's why so many nice men wake up married to the wrong girl." There; she'd given her warning. "Makes me feel guilty about the Hair-After."
Leehoff laughed. "Grandfather has a little rhyme you'd like. It goes, 'Little puffs of powder, little dabs of paint, make the pretty ladies look like what they ain't.' "
They attended to business then, and when it was completed Leehoff suggested they lunch together. Susanne wondered if she should. Ranalee would win by the law of averages if she continued looking upon Susanne as a threat to her plan. Yet didn't she herself owe something to her fellow man, Bert Leehoff?
He would pick her up at one o'clock; meanwhile she had to see Henri.
Henri had quite a time with himself when she caught him between appointments. She looked so sweet, so naive, so defenseless, he grew in stature by the second, yearning to protect her as a man should.
Deliberately he intoned mentally: I made her look like this. It isn't natural. She's smarter than any girl I've ever met. I will not be taken in by something I myself have created.
He was greatly relieved to learn she only wanted to thank him for his extra effort the previous night.
"Henri, I don't know how you knew what had been planned, but you really handled it. I still have a scratch here," she showed him where something sharp had gouged her neck, "so I know my wig was supposed to come off and reveal me as a horror. Instead-"
He brightened. "How did your guests like it? What did they say?"
"That I was adorable," she replied so impersonally he knew she hadn't accepted it as a compliment to herself, but to him, to his artistry.
"Henri," there was an anxious note in her voice now, "how long do I have to look adorable? Danny Harper is going on a very short run. I doubt he could stand another change in me."
"You are engaged to him, that he says how you shall appear?"
"Well, not exactly, but if you could have seen how he suffered-"
Patiently, as though Henri came from some foreign land, she explained about engagements and understanding.
"People who are very rich or very poor have no trouble at all. They just up and marry when the notion strikes them. But us in between-"
In her grandparents' day young couples married, rented a small house or apartment and accepted cast-off furniture from relations.
But not today, especially when the man was starting out in a business or profession. To admit he hadn't enough to purchase a home in a better district, furnish it in the current mode and have an extra good car in the garage would ruin him.
Some waited. Some didn't and grew ulcers.
Henri asked what profession Mr. Harper was following, or if he was in business for himself. Susanne had to admit neither really applied to him. He felt his college education would be wasted in his father's business.
"Meanwhile," she informed Henri, "he is finding himself."
And Henri breathed easy again, until Susanne left. Then he began wondering how long it would take this Harper person to find himself if Miss Susanne decided to retain the salon with its comfortable income.
He, Henri, had to take action. But as yet he didn't know what kind.
Bert Leehoff handed Susanne into his car as though she were his favorite client. Then he said it was such a beautiful day (it was pouring rain), he thought they should drive to a place in the country where excellent food was served. The better to keep Ranalee from knowing we're together, sighed Susanne.
The big old farmhouse was beautiful even in the rain. True, the porte-cochere had been added to the structure, rather spoiling its authenticity, but it was most comfortable in such a downpour. And the original owners would have shriveled in their denim and gingham at the small intimate corners provided for couples.
Susanne promptly started talking business, to be silenced by Leehoff, who said he'd hoped to carry her beyond the perimeter of the Hair-After.
Ah, then he wanted to talk about Ranalee?
Evidently. He mentioned the previous night's surprise party. Thoughtful of Miss Graton; didn't she think so?
"Just full of thought," agreed Susanne, and left him guessing.
"More patrons for the salon-"
Solemnly Susanne nodded. "You mean that lovely young Catherine Mason. Oh, dear, I forgot; she's only here for a few days. Visiting the Van Dusens, you know."
He had meant the others.
"Except for the men, all of the others are salon regulars."
"Ranalee felt," Leehoff spoke heavily, "that that purple hair fiasco needed a follow-up-"
"My, didn't she!" agreed Susanne. "But then, as you and she have an understanding similar to Danny's and mine, you would naturally know her motives."
"Understanding? Ranalee and I?" He seemed horrified. "Oh, you mean because I attended that dinner for her uncle. We were the only young couple there."
That carried them through the first course. As the second was served, he seemed deep in thought.
"This understanding you have with Mr. Harper-I am speaking as your attorney," he added swiftly. "Is there any chance of you marrying before the probate term is completed?"
"I doubt it. My, these biscuits are light. You see, Danny likes me as I used to be. Well, from what Henri tells me, I won't be like that for quite a while."
Leehoff seemed startled.
"In appearance. Danny, too, is a man who can't see below the surface. My hair must be kept like this until it grows out. To continue tinting itwould turn it brittle, and I could show up some morning bald. Wouldn't that be fun."
"Fun?" gasped Leehoff. "Horrible."
"I know. That's what I used to think at college when the boys had their heads shaved. But it was the smart thing to do. I might even start a new style."
Actually, Leehoff thought as he tromped up the courthouse steps two hours later, the only thing he had accomplished was to get Susanne to use his first name so he might use hers. As he had explained, she wasn't Miss
Mary, and every time he said Miss Morgan he fully expected Miss Mary to materialize.
"I wish she would," Susanne had said wistfully. "I can't cope with these women's insides."
It had taken her the eight-mile drive back to the city to explain she had been speaking psychologically, not anatomically.
She had had to illustrate, and no one would ever know how sternly she had pushed Ranalee Graton into the background and brought forth a fictitious character as an example.
It would be continued, Bert told her, in the next issue; that is, on their next date, a prearranged one for the first evening she had free.
Susanne teetered into the salon to her office. Had she gotten through to him? And why had he seemed so shocked when she'd spoken of an understanding between himself and Ranalee? Maybe Ranalee was the only one who knew about it.
Now, how to curb that girl before she spoiled a fine young man the city, state, and nation needed?
She was sitting thinking about how her Aunt Mary would have handled such a situation when Lurline came to the door.
She knew Lurline the least well of any of her operators. Lurline was a quiet, self-contained girl, gentle and kindly, who never seemed to need anything from anyone.
"Miss Morgan," she said now, "there is a woman here who wants a consultation."
"A what?"
"Little Miss Mary used to give. I've been trying to do her face, but it's so ravaged it will have to be handled from the inside. I told her I doubted if you had taken on that part of the work, but I knew how nothing ever got you down; not even purple hair. So, please, may I bring her in?"
Without waiting an answer, she turned back to the salon, leaving Susanne feeling all she needed on her head right now was a turban, and before her a crystal ball. What on earth should she do? She couldn't pose as a counselor.
Suddenly Susanne felt as if she needed a man-right away, too, she thought. She needed to get away from all of this and relax in deep hot pleasure.
Susanne picked up the phone on her desk and called Lurline's station. "Hold it up for fifteen minutes or so," she said. "Then you can send her in."
She closed the door to her office and locked it.
She reached underneath her dress and ran her hands along her legs. Then she quickly flipped up her skirt and ran her hand under her panties. Her flesh was warm and she began to pinch and torment her soft flesh, loving the painful pleasure of her acts.
Susanne wanted a man. She wanted him at that moment, in her office. She had no doubt that, feeling as she did, had any man been in the office, she would have made love to him. It wouldn't really have mattered who he was-just a man. Any man.
As her fingers flicked at the portals of her wet slit, Susanne thought about Bert's big, bulging pecker. She thought of how it would feel violating her inner warmth, smashing aside her tissues and digging its way down her heaving hole.
That only made her push into herself deeper, crumpling her fingers together to shove them in and then letting them wiggle about against her tight womb walls. All her fingers could feel was a sticky wet sponginess as the tube was pulled apart by her hand.
She breathed hard and brought her hand up to grab a tit. Then she pulled away from it.
Her head spun. Her pussy was starting to flow shamelessly.
Susanne closed her eyes. She had to get control of herself. This wasn't right.
But it was too late for pure reason. There was nothing she could do about the state of her emotions, or of her physical desires.
She stood up and quickly skinned off her panties. She leaned back against the desk, her legs widespread in front of her.
She pinched her tender flesh, almost swooning from the pleasure of it.
Then she quickly inserted two fingers into her moist center, loving the full feeling. Her other hand cupped a breast, working on the nipple.
She was breathing hard, not aware of what she was doing. Her mind was filled with images of men, lines of them, naked, erect, smiling at her.
She shivered as a powerful, pleasurable flow worked its way through her loins.
She grinned. How was she going to be counseling someone in a few minutes if this was where she was at right now?
But her mind put that thought away and concentrated on other things. She remembered the fierce pleasure of her couplings with Danny, the hard smooth feel of him as he entered her.
She was breathing hard now, getting ready for it.
She hiked her feet up onto the edge of the chair she sat in and opened her womb wide and full. She took hold with both hands of her slit folds and spread them apart, amazed at how far she could spread the flesh. She looked down on herself as her sticky tube opened wide and yawned.
She let the flaps back with a plop. Then she dug both sets of fingers down into her hole as if to pry herself apart down the middle.
Susanne was amazed that the gap in her bottom could stretch enough to accept the abuse she was performing on herself.
She knifed her fingers along and down her hair-pie, filling the slit and then pulling out to feel it heave shut with a tingling quiver.
Her thumbs diddled at her clit quickly, flapping the bud about to stimulate it to nearly painful proportions. She taunted her own love nut, rubbing it hard until the thing was shuddering and making her whole body dizzy with sensation. Her hands would then gouge out her slit even deeper.
She was lost in erotic fantasies. She dreamed of fat thrusting cocks in her puckered bum, in her shuddering quim, and in her warm and wet mouth. They were all firing endless hot tracers of come inside her.
Would Lurline send the woman in before time? Would she be surprised, standing in front of her desk, two fingers working furiously in her center?
She bit her lip to keep from crying out with pleasure. It wasn't as good as a man, but it was all she had available at the moment.
What if Bert were here, she thought. What a pleasure that would be! She'd show him what he was missing-he'd never look at another woman after fifteen minutes alone with her when she was in a mood like this!
- She felt herself dripping with excitement and she thrust yet another finger into her cunt. She was wide open now, longing for the full feel of a well-hung male.
She was about to fall forward from the pleasure of it; she gasped and maintained her balance and worked a fourth finger between her legs.
She was feeling it now-she had never masturbated with this much abandon in her life. Suddenly she froze-her pleasure was trembling on the brink.
And then with a soft cry she jammed herself one more time and felt the soft fluttery explosions of pleasure rack her body.
Five minutes later, composed, her face shining with relief, she called Lurline and told her that it was all right now-go ahead and send her in.