Chapter 11
Simplicity is a relative term. What is elegance to one can quite conceivably be utter peasantry to another.
To Paul Stone, it was not simplicity, or anything like it, that Joan had ready when he entered her living room. A pitcher of martinis were made and chilling, accompanied by shrimp cocktail, quite a feat, considering shrimp were in short supply at that time of year.
"A real Madison Avenue lunch," Paul beamed as Joan took his overcoat and hung it in the closet.
"This is hardly a routine occasion, Paul. I thought that tuna fish sandwiches might falsify my sentiments. It's the little things that express the most adequately, you know."
He smiled and said, "You're a remarkably perceptive woman, you know that?" She returned the smile.
"Thanks. Now, let's have a drink and talk, shall we?"
"Perceptive and efficient. A rare combination in any individual."
"Flattery, flattery-keep it up, it'll get you far," she laughed.
Let's hope so, Paul said silently.
"Well," he said aloud, sitting down with a martini glass in his hand, "we were supposed to talk about Lee, were we not?"
"Yes." Joan felt her throat getting tight. Instinct put her on her guard, but Stone invariably lowered that guard, putting her at ease. He had a soothing,' reassuring way about him, she decided. It would be nice if he extended the same flattering remarks toward Lee. Then her stomach would settle back down where it belonged instead of lingering in her throat.
"Now," Stone said, twirling the glass in his hand, "I've done a lot of thinking about Lee, Joan. More than you could realize. I hold him in pretty high esteem-considering his age and experience, he's accomplished an impressive amount of work.
"But there is one thing."
"Yes?" Joan held her breath.
"I'm only his superior, and I haven't been able to know him on a more personal level. That's where I can use your help. Tell me, how serious is he about his novel?"
Joan brightened. Now she could loose a barrage.
"John Hanley read it over the weekend. If he sees that it's salable, he'll work with Lee all the way."
"I have no doubts about that. But how much literary value will it have? Will it show promise?"
"What you really mean," Joan smiled, "is what will it do for the university?"
"I'm afraid so, in large part."
"Well, Paul, that's a rather speculative question, don't you think? I mean after all, Dickens was always a commercial success, but it took a while fo the critics to discover him. Same with Melville, Hawthorne, Faulkner and our mutual friend John Hanley."
"Right you are. But talent is partly measurable in a more immediate sense."
Now we're getting into the game, Joan thought.
The game that Lee cannot, will not play.
It occurred to her that since Lee would not go overboard, she would have to in her own unique way: a way unique to all reasonably appealing women. And her appeal was far more than reasonable.
"I think Lee has a great deal of talent. I've read part of the manuscript in rough form, and so has John. Time will tell the rest."
"But he is serious? He does have an artistically successful literary career in mind?"
"More than anything else, next to teaching, that's what he wants. And he'll do nearly anything within his power to get it."
Paul moved closer to her.
She felt butterflies.
"Another drink, Paul?" she asked. Damn it, why am I so nervous, she wondered. It is for Lee, for us, that I'm going to do it.
"If you think you need one, Joan." Their eyes met and locked.
It was understood.
He knew that she knew, and she knew that he knew, and thus it went through the chain of perception. Paul's work was virtually eliminated; she knew what the stakes were, and she was nervous, but willing to pay the price.
Her body!
Her fidelity, her peace of mind, everything.
"Yes I do need a drink," she said shakily. He watched her pour out the liquid from the pitcher; it looked like water. Innocently bland, in a deceptive way, like Paul Stone III, man of distinctive good looks and good mind and good scholarly reputation. Hell, she thought, he was just like the rest of them. She'd known her share of the breed during her old dancing days, when it wasn't so much a question of what you knew as who you went down for and let know you better. Noble ideals! If Lee only knew what you had to do, the game you had to play. He didn't know. It meant that she had to play it for him. He wouldn't prostitute what he considered his integrity, so she was doing a little for both of them.
Why, Lee, why? Are you worth it, really? she wondered. What would his reaction be if he ever found out about this? It was a rhetorical question that defied any ready-made answers, she realized. It was like asking How high is Up? Stupid, hollow, insoluble.
"Are you disappointed with me, Joan?" he asked, taking the drink. When she sat down again, he slipped his arm around her. "Are you sorry about our understanding Friday?"
"What-?"
"We made a more or less intangible agreement, but I think we both understood the terms. You didn't disagree or dissent in any way, did you?" His arm tightened around her shoulder, and she tried not to stiffen her body. She wondered whether Stone used multi-syllabic words in bed?
Or on the couch.
On the floor.
She didn't much give a damn at this point, so long as it got done. She would take off her clothes, let him fondle her breasts, her thighs, tweak her belly or whatever the hell he liked by way of foreplay. She would lie down, point her knees toward the ceiling, and let him mount her, drive himself home against her, into her, boff her to the proverbial hilt and dump his passion inside her like some kind of human garbage disposal.
It would be turning a trick.
You didn't think about it, didn't even really react to it: you just did it, wriggling hips and buttocks enough to impart the illusion of pleasure-let the jerk think he was getting to you. That was all. Period.
She let her lips loosen when he kissed her, put her arms tentatively around him, and for all practical purposes it was an embrace, although the mutuality was questionable. At least she didn't keep her lips tight and stiff. His lips were warm, moving things against hers. Relax, Joan, relax, she kept telling herself, while she felt the warmth of lips, the persistent stroking of hands up and down her back, from shoulders to small of buttocks.
Relax.
You can tell yourself you're in the twilight zone if you exert the effort of will and self-conviction. In view of that, it was relatively easy for Joan to tell herself to relax, and for her body and nerves to react accordingly.
His hand fondled a breast. It crept beneath the brassiere, fingers closing tightly around the tender flesh, the nipples. It was as though they had been injected with Novocain. Whatever he did, she would not respond.
If she did, she was finished.
Then she would have betrayed Lee in every single respect. As long as she could maintain physical and emotional distance, she would have something, however tiny, to hold on to.
He fondled her breasts, both of them. Numbness. They couldn't be hers, she thought idly. She was watching someone else who looked like her.
Paul Stone TIT had a quite opposite set of reactions. They were the antithesis of numbness and indifference. To put it rather succinctly, he had never known such a vast bombardment of erogenous evocations. He couldn't remember ever having been this excited over any bouts with his own wife. Youth, he thought, he was holding the spheres of youth in his hands; twin, perfect, burgeoning spheres of perennial youth!
He lost control, and began attacking buttons and zippers and snaps, peeled away layers of clothing, growing more and more excited by the feel of hot flesh against his hands. It was not enthusiastically hot flesh, but Paul Stone hardly knew the difference. It was warm, womanly, and above all, young flesh. He found breathing a major chore. Everything gathered in his throat at once. His hands sought blindly to render this bundle of youth in his possession naked.
Easy.
Just keep attacking the buttons and zippers and snaps, and you've got it, he thought wildly.
"Joan, I've always wanted you," he gasped. His voice was a dry, crackling croak, completely unfamiliar to his ears.
Joan only heard the words.
With her eyes closed, she finished the job he had started, pushed the panties over her hips and down until they caught at her ankles.
"You've got me, Paul." She lay back. The sofa was strangely cool against her back and buttocks, in contrast to his hot sweaty hands on her breasts and stomach.
"In the bedroom," he croaked again, "let's do it in there." Something degrading in the couch, he thought. Like knocking off a quickie. And God knew he didn't want it to be like that. He wanted to make it last and last, until the youth in her was gone forever. Panting like an overworked dog, he followed her into the bedroom, watching the sway and roll of naked, smooth buttocks-twenty-four years old! Again, he found breathing difficult.
On the bed that belonged to Lee and Joan Cushing, he had the young woman, who in his demented mind's eye, was even younger.
Sweet.
Infinitely sweet.
Cushing, you can have your promotion, he thought-you've paid for it.
At one o'clock, Lee walked back to his office to put away his brief case full of books. He felt slightly weak and dizzy from hunger. A whole hour to sit in the Faculty Club and eat. Hanley would be there, eating. It had developed that if Lee weren't able to join him at lunch, they would have to get together the next day. Hanlev had an unexpectedly full schedule. He threw the brief-case on the chair, and shut the door behind him. When he was no more than a couple of feet from the door, the phone rang.
Cursing, he walked back and unlocked the door, picked up the telephone.
"Hello, Doctor Cushing," he announced tersely. Damned inopportune moment, he thought savagely.
"It sounds as though T caught the professor at a bad time," the soft feminine voice tinkled. Lee softened as soon as he recognized it.
"Hello, Peggy, how are you?"
"Fine. But I can call back if-"
"No, no, what can I do for you?" Lee asked.
"Have you had your lunch?"
"No. I was just going out to get some, as a matter-of-fact."
"That's why you sounded irritable. Well, I thought we might eat together. Why don't you buzz over here?"
"I've only got an hour. It wouldn't be particularly leisurely, I'm afraid. I have a class at two."
"You're three minutes from here-that's six minutes' driving time, plus valuable time you're wasting on the phone. I'll be waiting for you, Lee, with a nice, nice luncn. 'Bye."
"But-" Too late. She had already hung up. With a sigh, he walked outside toward the parking lot, thinking What the hell, I'll have plenty of time, what's the big rush? Earlier, he had seen Stone leave the office, passing by his on the way to the parking lot. It wasn't like Stone to go off campus during the day, even for lunch. He couldn't be at home. That was a cinch. After starting the car, he forgot about Stone; the man's comings and goings were of no import to him, except one.
When Peggy greeted him at the front door, he felt as though he had seen the whole scene unfold before. Then it hit him: he'd dreamed about it, countless times, since Friday night, when Peggy had thrown a hint at him with all the subtlety of a bulldozer hitting a stone wall.
Only he didn't have a stone wall's density.
He had known exactly what she was referring to.
And now he was going for it. Once, twice, a hundred times, what does it matter, he thought. You do it, that's the end. And this time, it's for a gain.
It's the game.
Roundabout, but the game.
"Hi, Lee. It didn't take three minutes; it took two and a half."
"You timed it?" he asked with a grin. Funny, how he could grin even while feeling a heavy, depressing weight in the bottom of his stomach.
"I sure did. Come on, let's have a drink. Are you hungry?"
"You did mention the word lunch, I believe."
"I didn't mean that kind of hungry, Lee. And I didn't mean meat and potatoes before ... you know what I mean." If he'd had any doubts, she was doing a marvelous job of dispelling them, shaking that precious butt of hers. And it was precious. Preciously shaped, precious, he felt certain, to hold onto in that hurricane frenzy of lovemaking.
She was wearing tightly clinging leather slacks, $65.00 at Anita Ames' little store in the village, loose but revealing (like all well-fitted women's clothes); vest-sweater, $48.50 at Anita's; and a simple Lady Manhattan blouse, $6.95 at your leading department store. Shoes by I. Miller-open-toed, flat, dainty-looking at $25.00 on sale.
Nice clothes to compliment a nice body.
Her figure was much like Joan's, he thought, but it lacked the refined grace. Instead, it was definitely lewd, definitely suggestive, and even more definitely the type that caused more than one rape in the national figures. Women built like Peggy Stone who walked down a dark street had to be begging for it. Well turned out, well clothed, and damn well worth taking a dive off the high board for.
"I guess I do."
"Tell me honestly, Lee; if the stakes weren't what they were, would you still want me?"
"Any man would want you," he said quietly.
"I'm glad you said that. I was beginning to feel awfully much like a tramp. Do you hate me an awful lot? It must present all sorts of horrid conflicts."
"Let's not discuss it." he snapped. She smiled, excused herself, and was gone. He didn't know where, nor did he care, but with any luck at all, she would waste enough time to allow him to bow out gracefully. He knew that once it started, there would be no stopping. She was too much woman for that.
He poured himself another drink. He needed it. It went down like a jolt of hot lead, warmed his belly. He tried not to think about it. Only one thing was certain, he decided: and that was that you could never, under any circumstances, be smug and secure, thinking you could never become involved in anything reproachful. Reproachful? Hell, unbelievable was more the proper word. Circumstances, fate, everything uncontrollable and unpredictable could gather forces and rip the floor right out from under you with absolutely no difficulty.
So never believe in yourself, Lee Cushing.
"Don't let the daylight bother you," Joan's voice said behind him. He had been staring moodily out of the window. "Pretend it's night, and everything's cozy. Before you turn around, draw the drapes. will you?"
He did. The room fell into semi-darkness. Then, he turned, and saw Peggy Stone. But really saw her, in almost all her natural splendor.
She was wearing a nightie, if wearing can be properly applied. It was a wisp of a thing, enough to evoke more excitement in a man than if she had been altogether naked. The nipples of her breasts showed deep, shadow-pink through the gauze, as did the deep dark cleavage between her breasts. Her hips and buttocks were perfectly out-lined in shadow, and the dark patch of fluff between those statuesque thighs showed-all enough to make the mouth water, to make the male determination rise to new heights. The nightie stopped just below the buttocks, so that when she walked, he could see fleeting glimpses of buttocks and topmost thighs.
"Well, you like?" she asked, her voice thick and guttural with a nuance he hadn't heard before not even when she had propositioned him at the cocktail party.
"Peggy, it's getting late...."
"Thirty minutes, darling. Exactly thirty minutes, twenty-seven of which will be the sweetest, most delectible minutes you ever sampled."
Lee swallowed.
He damn well believed her.
Peggy moved toward him slowly, resolutely, while he stood rooted to the plush-carpeted floor. As she advanced, the details of her body took on a stark clarity: breasts more full, swinging indolently with her footsteps; nipples brushing against the gauze; navel showing now, suggesting sweet, warm flesh ready to be excited by his touches.
"Twenty-seven minutes," she whispered heavily, "don't blow 'em, Lee."
Then she was against him.
It was too late. He couldn't move forward, he couldn't retreat. There was nothing for him to do but stay glued in position. He felt his arms close around her, felt the engulfment of her body as it clung cloyingly to his, and it was over. As he closed his eyes, and felt the sweet white heat of her, he knew there was no turning back. Nor could he stay where he was.
He had to move forward.
Against her, arms around her, hands slithering down the warm, almost bare back to naked, swishing buttocks. His response grew until it was painful. It was far more intense than anything he had ever before experienced. Like the old cowboy heroes say, if you had to go, going this way was the best way. He firmly believed that.
Her hands stroked him feverishly. His body rocked back and forth while uncontrollable moans wrenched through his lips. It was impossible to remain still, not to the hot rhythms of lust and passion that played through him.
A savage growl came out of him, and he tore the nightie from her body. There wasn't much to tear-two narrow straps at the shoulders, and that was essentially it. It fell down her body, clinging loosely at the melony breasts for a moment before it continued its journey. Then she was naked. In all her splendor.
It was no time for literary allusion, but Lee was changing into a Mr. Hyde. Even though no hair grew an his face, he did feel a savage impulse rise in him, traces of a strength that he never knew himself to possess. He tore off his own clothing quickly, leaving them strewn on the floor.
Peggy gasped.
"Magnificent!" she said with a tremulous shudder. Her eyes were focused in a fairly specific spot, and it was altogether plain what she was labelling magnificent. And if any woman had large demands on magnificence, it was Peggy Stone, who had for the most part received less than adequate from her husband. She fell against him in a swoon, her eyes going smoky-slitty with passion, her hands stroking his back, his plane-like hips and flat hard stomach.
Down.
"So beautiful!" she whispered, "so-oooh, it's all mine!" She grasped him firmly, touched him so that his knees turned to jelly, and let her knee go limp and loose between his legs. When he kissed her, she emitted a breathy, echo-like sound into his throat. Her teeth nibbled demandingly at his lower Up, while her nails scratched at the spare skin at the nape of his neck.
"My God," she moaned, going loose in his arms. There was nothing for him to do but follow her descent, holding her cradled in his arms. He found himself bent over her-her nipples stared at him like two red eyes, winking, challenging, arousing his desire. His lips surrounded one.
It was enough.
Peggy made a hissing sound between her teeth, thrust herself at the mouth that excited her so. Gently, he lowered her all the way to the floor and flung himself astride, ready for the final onslaught that would carry them to infinite heights of ecstasy.
"Not yet," she whimpered, "so much to do, so much to show you, not yet!"
Not yet.
But something, anything, his nerves screamed. Her fingers closed around him, he felt weak-kneed again, ready to go into a swoon.
"Use me!" she shouted. It was a shout; it had the hot demand, the ultimate gracelessness of a shout. "Use me hard! Pleasure me!"
Hell, it was a gold mine, where a man could let his imagination and inclinations run wild, he thought. More: a guy could discover inclinations within himself that he never dreamed were there.
And he'd do just that.
Why not?
It didn't matter at this point how he played the game. The disheartening fact remained that he was in fact playing that unsavory game known as Cop On Your Wife. Like the three time loser, he had virtually nothing to lose.
But there was a difficulty that could be annoying, and in fact was. Lee Cushing had never merely used a woman. He had always entered lovemaking with the idea that it was a reciprocal relationship. You both derived mutual satisfaction, physically and emotionally. But now he was being asked and prodded to indulge his whims, his savage perversions, whatever they might be. And alas, to a man who had never thought of looking for such beasts within his breast, it was a rather demanding request.
"Bite me!" Peggy said, shoving her nipple into his mouth, "bite me hard." It was a beginning. He bit down slightly. She told him, "Harder, oh much much harder than that, darling."
"And by slow degrees, he let his teeth grind together, with the thinnest layer of pink bleeding flesh between them for a cushion.
The results were astounding.
She squirmed, moaned, cursed hot words of encouragement, and it was like a tamed wolf tasting blood. He went wild for the first time, and thought of lots of things he might like to do by way of torturing that pretty hunk of flesh who was just begging for it.
He hit her.
Across the face, so that her teeth chattered, and her head rocked from side to side. Through it all, she smiled impishly, encouraged by his sudden response.
"Again, Lee." He hit her again, and a sudden, exhilarating sense of physical strength coursed through his veins. He didn't want to hurt her, but he wanted to exert his superiority, wanted to see her pant and beg for something, anything, whether for mercy or more of the same.
In the heat of necessity, ideas are quickly transferred into direct action. Dragging her by that pretty hair, he took her with him to the sofa. Sat down. Pulled her on top of him, across the knee.
The buttocks trembled eagerly, while the pretty mouth moaned incoherent little sounds. He let his hand come down on a bare, rounded cheek, and watched it color slightly pink. Then again. Pinker, pinker, red, redder, in sweet, hot progression perfectly timed to the intensity of his blows upon her. Tt cave him an immense degree of pleasure, and she returned it in spades, wriggling hotly against him, female against male.
Somewhere inside him, something snapped.
It was inside, deeply hidden, but now scattered to the winds. Lee pushed her back brutally, into sitting position, and took the end-pillows and stuffed them under her buttocks.
Sobbing, she waited.
"Huhhh!" Like that.
Her buttocks squirmed against the pillows, and she sat there, staring glassily, sumptuous thighs sprawled. Waiting! Ready for him.
Her bod'-"coiled as though a high-powered rifle bullet had smacked into it when he took her. Back and forth, back and forth, their bodies not touching-yet more sense of contact than either of them had ever felt. Lee let himself fall forward and put his hands against her hilly breasts for support as his hips ground out the lust-tempo.
When it was over, she shreiked, then sighed, then closed her eyes. A dreamy smile played on her lips.
"You sure know your way around the campus," she murmured. Now that it was over, there seemed to be nothing to say to one another. Lee felt hollow-sick with remorse, as the useless relationship hit home. He had traded a few sweet moments of pleasure for-Joan, and everything their marriage was based on. Peggy registered zero in his feelings and sensibilities; in short, she was just a thirty-four-year-old woman with hot pants that had to be cooled somehow. And he had been the best available tool.
"I have to go. It's getting late." He watched her watch him get dressed; neither of them said anything for awhile.
Until: "Lee, don't worry about that associate job. Believe me, sweetie, you've got it hands down."
"Sure."
"Well, isn't that what you wanted?" she demanded, sensing his indifference.
"I don't know what I want any more," he said. "I just don't know." He finished dressing, turned to look at her once again. There was nothing in her eyes. No warmth, no acknowledgement of him. nothing that said, We did something for one another, Lee, gave something to each other that we didn't have before.
Her eyes were hollow, maybe a bit disgusted.
Not at all like it had been with Brenda Wood, who had looked at him starry-eyed, tears of happy-sadness, which made him feel just as rotten and just as sick as he felt now.
"Good-bye, Peggy."
"Good-bye, sweetie. You'll be hearing from my distinguished husband any day now." It was obviously a taunt, but Lee was too tired and too sick to respond. Instead, he just walked out.
Joan had no illusions of violated maidenhood, shorn innocence and all those concerns of a long-gone age. Instead, she felt anger. It was a widely diffused anger, directed at pretty nearly everyone.
It was directed at Lee, who refused to play the necessary game. It was also directed at Paul Stone III for having the damned, unmitigated gall of using her to his advantage. Lastly, it was directed at herself for having to resort to such vulgar tactics in order to insure success, which rightfully should have been assured by her husband's own hard work and ability. Annoying, cruddy, stinking: all adjectives that Joan readily applied to her past action. Most dismal was the fact that she hadn't enjoyed it. Although she had made up her mind not to enjoy their roll in the feathers, she had clung to the hope that her resistance would be broken at the last moment, that he would become a man, and she a woman, in the most primal of all relationships.
But it hadn't worked that way.
He had been too tormented with shaky lust, too overeager to ravage, too ... something, something at the tip of her tongue, but not quite definable.
Then it hit her.
Hard.
The jerk had treated her like a little girl. In the end, after the convulsions of lust, he had done everything except give her a lollipop and a dollar bill. A dirty, creepy old man was Dr. Stone!