Chapter 1
Her mood the night before and during her deepest sleep had been bad. Her dream immediately before awakening, however, was delightful.
In her dream she lay naked to the warm morning sun, yet she was pleasantly chilled. Her eyes were tightly closed against the new light and she felt, rather than saw, the little goose bumps that were rising on her body. She shivered deliriously.
Why was she chilled? Oh yes, now she understood: she was lying in a cool mountain stream, the water rushing not too swiftly all over her. She smiled as she felt the pleasant, gentle touch of the water.
But something was happening: the water wasn't so cool any more. It was quickly warming up and the warmth entered her flesh. Goose bumps melted away. She could scarcely tell the difference between the warm water and her own body.
Then there was no difference. She and the water were one and the same. She had turned to liquid. She herself was the warmly flowing water, twisting, turning, coursing through the stream bed.
She was no longer warm. She was boiling, sparkling, and bubbling, and she felt so good. Her warmth increased as she flowed even faster, turning on her bed, gasping with pleasure. She was warmer now, approaching the boiling point. Smooth pebbles brushed over her where her breasts should be, and then-
She awakened abruptly.
She was lying on her right side in her huge Japanese bed, and a man's hand was gently caressing her left breast.
She had gone to bed alone.
With a startled cry,-she reached behind her and grasped a hard masculine leg.
"Shouldn't leave your door unlocked, lady," a male voice murmured.
"Jack, you fool!"
"Anybody could come in. Some poor maniac like me. He's been hanging around for weeks, months, years. He knows that a beautiful woman with rich auburn hah-and boobs like cantaloupes lives here. He bides his time. He tries to hold himself back-"
"Will you let go of me!"
He wouldn't. His fingers left her breast to trace her shaking waist. She tried to lock her knees, to drag his hand away, but he persisted and her needs overruled her. With a sigh, she relaxed and let him play as he pleased.
"Finally he can't stand waiting any longer," Jack went on. "At some likely hour, he tries the door. It's unlocked. Silently he enters. He creeps through the living room. Through the dining room. Down the hallway. At last he finds milady's chamber...."
Why does he have to do this? she wondered. Why am I letting him?
She was at cross-purposes with herself. A passionate woman, her desire was always ready to be fired, but increasingly she found herself weary of that. She would rather go to bed alone and awaken alone. It wasn't as if she truly loved someone and was loved in return.
Loving, reduced to its lowest common denominator, had become a bore.
And yet she was reaching out to hold him as he held her. Male and female primary characteristics yearned for completion.
"He sees her lying there asleep," Jack whispered huskily. "She's stark naked and unbelievably beautiful, far more so than he had ever realized. Breasts like great gobs of cherry-topped ice cream. Her waist a veritable campus for the romp of love.
"What can the poor devil do? Naturally love, lust, passion, is aroused. He can hardly contain himself. He strips of his clothes, every last stitch, mind you, and he flings himself down beside her. He clutches her, nibbles her, kisses her. He devours the cherry-topped ice cream, he scampers over the campus...."
She groaned and tugged at him.
For the first time that morning she looked at him: a slim, dark, thin-cheeked young man, a few years younger than she. He was wiry, intense, and at this moment, attractively virile.
"What are you waiting for, maniac?"
"One more look at the lovely landscape."
He bent and gave her a flickering kiss.
"If you're going to love me, hurry!" she commanded, panting, and she reached for him.
He didn't need her guidance, but his first actions seemed to go on forever, and then they were lying quietly in one another's embrace.
"A moment's more respite?" he asked when their breathing had calmed.
"No. No, go on."
He went on and she went with him.
But not entirely with him. Why? she asked herself. What's the use, if this is all there is to life? The same old rituals, the same old responses. Pleasant enough in a way. therapy for jangled nerves, a relief from the glandular and psychic pressures....
But is that all? Is that all biology affords?
It's like living on hamburgers; pleasant enough at first, but eventually one gets the feeling that somewhere there ought to be something called steak.
Their pace increased.
Oh, you're good, good, good, she thought. Oh, I like that.
But is this all there is?
She wanted to sob, she wanted to Deg tor something more, something that would fulfill her. She wanted tn scream for him to stop, to go away, to leave her alone.
And at the same time she was thinking, oh I like that, I like him. I like what he's doing, oh he's good and good and good-
And she was barely aware of speaking aloud, telling him what he was doing and urging him to make her do something else.
And she yelled that her final moment was arriving-
Then that moment was there and she was thrashing wildly.
And he stiffened-
And that was over.
Sadly, meaninglessly, futilely over. One more culmination. So what?
"Good?" he asked.
"That was nature being natural."
As soon as he had rolled away from her, she fished beside the low Japanese bed for a cigarette. She lit it, took a couple of puffs, and made a face.
"You might at least give a woman a chance to brush her teeth first."
"I didn't try to kiss you, did I? Wasn't that thoughtful of me?"
She made another face, gave him the cigarette, and went to the bathroom.
Why the hell did he have to come here? she wondered as she stood under the cool shower. She heard him on the other side of the curtain, using the washbasin, and she resisted the temptation to ask him to soap her back. If she did, he'd be at her again.
She stepped from the tub-shower. It was a mammoth sunken thing meant to hold at least two adults, a veritable junior size swimming pool, as she sometimes thought of it. Yet it took up but one corner of a bathroom in which one could have mounted a couple of pool tables. She felt better, but not much.
Why had he come? To take advantage, she thought testily. But of course that wasn't fair. They were friends. He liked her and she liked him. Very much.
But it was time to break up the combination.
She returned to the bedroom. Jack had opened the curtains and slid back the long glass wall of the room so that it was entirely exposed to the outdoors. Still naked, he stood on the veranda and smoked a cigarette as he gazed at the lawn. The lawn itself was surrounded by a high impenetrable hedge, some poplars, and a wire fence-and she had forgotten to lock the damned door!
"Better get dressed," she said. "Or five minutes from now you're going to look pretty silly walking down the street in the nude."
"Don't I even get any breakfast?" he asked.
She relented. "Oh sure, if you'll cook for both of us."
"Come out here," he said, smiling. "So I can hold you."
It was a good cue, she decided, for her to say what she had to say and be done with it.
"Jack, that was the last time."
He glanced at her sharply, measured her seriousness.
"What brings this on, Leslie?"
"I think you know. What good is that?"
"Well, good in itself."
She took his cigarette and puffed on it as she shook her head. "No more. Do you remember how we got started?"
"Yeah?" His voice was small and he made the word a question.
"You had your lost love and hadn't been able to get over her. I tried to help you. I've tried on and off for almost three years, since soon after I came here. I suspect I've failed."
"Now, don't tell me every time we've loved you've been doing a Florence Nightingale. And don't tell me that's simply been your field work as a professional biologist."
"Of course not." She took his arm and leaned against his shoulder. "But that's no good for me or for you. We've degenerated into ritualists, and I'm too old for that kind of thing. So are you. And you don't love me.
Jack hesitated before replying. "What's love?" There was a hint of bitterness in his tone.
"I don't know. Biology doesn't completely explain it. Neither does psychology. Nor religion nor anything else. But my God!" Her voice rose. "There's got to be something!"
"It's not another man, then."
"No."
"And that damned Audrey hasn't turned you into a Lesbian?"
She laughed weakly. "Oh, no!"
"Then don't shoo me off entirely, sweetie. You may want me back."
"It's better to break off clean."
"Without even warning me that that was to be the last time?"
"Definitely."
"Once more, sweetie. Here, on the grass." He took the cigarette from her and stubbed it out "No, please, Jack."
"You've brushed your teeth, now give me that morning kiss."
He didn't give her time to object. The arms she had been holding swept around her bare waist, encircling her and drawing her to him. Her legs met his, her breasts flattened against his chest. Their lips met.
She tried to make it a kiss and no more than a kiss, but when his lips played delicately, pressed harder, she felt hers responding to the warm flutter of desire.
She hated herself for having become so attuned, so responsive, to him.
His left hand was on her right breast, lifting, flexing, drawing toward the nerve center, and new warmth flooded her. Pressing against him, she became aware of his own returned desire.
"Oh, Jack, no." Her protest was weak, as weak as her knees at this moment.
He didn't heed her. He pushed against her seductively.
"Oh, you rat, Jack."
"You see, you may need me sometime. As I need you now."
His lips returned to hers, his hand left her breast. It traveled unhurriedly across her body. He made her shake in his arms like a young aspen.
Carefully, never releasing her, he led her down from the porch to the grass. She was faint and her eyelids fell, almost closed.
When they stopped, she let her knees give way. Kneeling, she grasped his legs and kissed him, deeply.
He toppled her backward and moved to her. She looked at him and now she longed for what she saw. He didn't make her wait long. He rushed ahead, tentatively, exploratively.
With a single sigh, he took her.
And even as she moaned with pleasure, she wondered what the hell was the use.
After breakfast, a shower, and loving for the third time, Jack Home left.
He offered to give Leslie a lift to the university, but she declined. She wanted to be alone for a while, or at least not near Jack. Their morning session had left her nerveless and numb. Once would have been all right in spite of her negative feelings about the whole thing. At least that was relaxing, if she still needed relaxing after a good night's sleep. Twice wasn't bad; in fact, the second had really been better than the first. But why in hell had she yielded to Jack's urgings the third time?
It just went to show how you could condition one person's body.
But how was she to become deconditioned? Find another man? Prowl around? Such ideas didn't appeal to her in the slightest.
She couldn't help wondering if she weren't thinking along the lines of a self-pitying brat. The vast majority of the women m this world might well envy her. She was Leslie Stanton, Ph.D. in biology, and a leader in her field. She had won every major award available by the time she was thirty-one. She had a position at a small but extremely well-endowed liberal arts and sciences university, one of the best in the midwest or, for that matter, anywhere. Her job was virtually a sinecure: she delivered a lecture now and then, conducted some graduate and staff seminars, attended others, and had most of her time free for her own research and experimentation.
Which had become increasingly dull.
She had this beautiful house all to herself. Located on the edge of town and off the highway, it afforded a degree of privacy that most people dreamed of and never achieved. Built along Japanese lines, it was thoroughly American, thoroughly beautiful, and wonderfully roomy. It was a dream to keep up, and she had practically dispensed with any kind of help, calling in a cleaning woman once a month and having the lawn tended when it needed care.
Besides the security her parents had left her, she had other sources of income. Her textbooks sold more copies than most books on the bestseller lists: the last she had heard, only Samuelson's economics text sold better than any one volume of hers, but she had three volumes running up printing after printing. The romances she ocoasionally dreamed up under a pseudonym sold exceptionally well. She certainly didn't have to worry about money.
She was healthy; she was beautiful. Clad in her underwear, she went into the bathroom. There she shoved her panties down, unhooked her brassiere and raised it, and gazed at herself in the mirror.
She saw the ripe body of a thirty-four-year-old woman, one who had left her adolescence well behind and had at last entered the best years of her life. Four years past her youth, she was fully matured, far too much woman for the sandlot leagues of the twenties. With cold objectivity of a first-rate biologist, she noted once again that her face and body were designed for specific things. Nature had given her a face to attract a man of intelligence, taste, and discrimination, and endowed her with a body to give him excitement. Mother Nature's way of maintaining the race, and nobody had improved on it.
The thought increased her melancholy.
There would be no children from Jack, nor did she want any from him.
Once, not so long ago, such matters as husband, children, and family life had left her indifferent. If eventually they came to her, all well and good. If not, life had other rewards. She had exceptional intelligence and a scientific talent. She had no difficulty in making contact with kindred souls. The world was willing and eager to pay for things she could easily produce, and she didn't know what it was to have an unpaid bill. One of the golden lads and lasses.
As for loving, charming and capable company was generally available. In her early days, she had regarded that need as a rather amusing animal appetite to be appeased or indulged now and then at her convenience. As she had approached her late twenties, it had become a much more important part of her being, and in all honesty, she was forced to the conclusion, however romantic, that life contained mysteries which she might never fathom.
She had studied it assiduously. What she learned, she used both for her own pleasure and for the good of others. She had brought more than one woman to amorous maturity. She had given confidence to more than one man who had been psychologically maimed by an unwilling wife or a sadistic mistress.
But her own satisfactions had become increasingly hollow. She wondered what she had missed. She might have had several children by now, if she had played her cards in a different manner. She had several acquaintances of her age with children now entering their teens. As a biologist, she knew that if she didn't have a child soon, she might never be able to do it. It might be too late already.
The idea that it might be already too late for children gave Leslie a chill. She fixed her under clothes and continued dressing.
So I'm fully matured, she thought. Except that I've never had a baby. There is a school of thought that a woman can't be fully matured until she's had at least one child. If that's true, perhaps I'll never know what real physical maturity is.
Perhaps she should have allowed Jack to give her a child. But that wouldn't be fair without his consent. She doubted that he would ever give that.
An idea was slowly crystalizing in her mind. It had been latent for some time and now it could no longer be denied.
She wanted to be in love. She wanted to be passionately and irrevocably committed to one man. No infatuation, no mere friendship, no fond fun-and-games; that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to go the limit. No turning back. Loved and seduced, cherished and raped. A man who would give her a child and, together, they would be complete.
I'm thinking like a stupid schoolgirl, she told herself miserably, a stupid schoolgirl in love with love. I'm regressing to my adolescence.
But the idea, the desire, persisted.
She had a staff seminar scheduled for that afternoon, and she made herself go over the materials she wished to discuss. The meeting was to be devoted to reviewing some of the latest publications in her field, and fortunately there was an interesting item or two or she would have been bored to tears.
She drove her little red MG over to campus town and had lunch in a burger joint before going to her office. There was little mail for her, and the only envelope which looked at all promising was from her publisher.
It proved to be a disappointment. For some time now they had been trying to interest her in doing some scientific popularizations, and few ideas appealed to her less. Why spend weeks trying to reduce complex subjects to common language when she might be working on something fresh and interesting? Writing textbooks had been a drag; she had only done so because for her purposes she hadn't been satisfied with the ones currently available. If she were going to turn out something popular, she'd rather make it a romance.
The only thing new about the letter was that it announced the impending arrival of somebody named Max Flagg and it requested that she give him a few minutes of her time. Would she please see him?
She didn't know if she would or not. She had an impulse to send a telegram requesting that Mr. Max Flagg keep as far from her as possible.
The four-hour seminar proved to be something of a respite from her mood. Everyone stuck to the subject, and Leslie threw herself into the discussion, giving thanks that they didn't lapse into one of those asinine arguments that so frequently cropped up: should or should not graduate assistants be specifically required to wear white shirts and ties rather then open-necked, colored sports shirts when conducting discussion sections during the summer session.
Afterward, the blues returned slowly but in force. She fought them by making herself prepare a good steak dinner and by leaving the gin bottle alone.
From seven-thirty until nine she tried to work her way through a detective thriller. It proved to be too much detection and too little thriller: one of those books which devote page after page to speculative reconstructions and explanations which the reader knows perfectly well will turn out to prove wrong, so why wade through them? One of these days, she thought, I'm going to try a thriller. All action and character-in-action and reversal after reversal and some romance and-
The doorbell gonged, a soft resonant double gong.
"Leslie?"
"Come in."
Audrey Moore opened the screen door and entered.
"Just saw a pretty good French movie over on campus," Audrey said.
"You were on campus wearing that?"
The young French teacher had four brief pieces of clothing in evidence. Two low-heeled red slippers. A pair of tight, white shorts. An undersized and low-cut red halter that barely managed to contain the respectable amount it was meant to contain.
"Why not? Thrills for students and staff alike. I'm very democratic that way. Darling, I could feel the tension around me wherever I went."
"I dare say. One of these days you'll be picked up by the campus cops for inappropriate apparel-"
"Or, better yet, for corrupting the morals of the young."
"I'm serious, Audrey. You could lose your job, if you don't get yourself raped first."
Audrey flopped down into a chair. "Raped," she said musingly. "I wonder what that would be like."
Leslie studied the younger woman. "I wonder if perhaps that isn't what you're trying for. It would take the decision out of your hands, and you feel that you could then relax and enjoy that, as they say."
"Let's get off the subject."
"When are you going to take a man, Audrey?"
"When I damned well feel like it."
"I wonder. How old are you? Twenty-nine? And still a virgin."
"Demi-virgin, I think is the word. It has such a quaint Victorian sound. I rather like it. Means you've had that and you haven't, doesn't it?"
Leslie ignored the question. Audrey's presence did little to make her feel better. Like Jack, Audrey was one of her failures. She had hoped to turn her friend into the path of normal sexuality, but Audrey persisted in clinging to a practice which was less Lesbianism than mutual self-gratification.
Oh, she was attracted to men, all right. Highly attracted. And highly attractive. In her present and not atypical attire, for instance, she was not merely seductive as another beautiful woman might have been: she appeared downright wanton, as if she were hoping to be taken.
And wasn't she? Hadn't the idea of being raped seemed to have a certain appeal for her?
She was quite willing to go out with men. She wasn't repelled by their kisses, and more than once she had brought Leslie a tale of how she had let some man caress her breasts, but that was as far as it ever went. Even the few months of psychotherapy Audrey had taken had done nothing to improve the situation.
"Hotter than hell, isn't it?" Audrey said.
"I hadn't noticed."
"Well, I had. And I'm going to do something about it. Later I'll me your shower-"
"Let's go out back. I do have callers from time to time." Audrey had started shoving her white shorts down. Now she stepped out of them and followed Leslie to the back veranda, taking off her red halter as she went.
"By the way," Audrey said as they settled into deck chairs, "a girl I know got a letter today. Seems that I have some old friends coming back to visit the campus. I kind of went for him, he was the only fellow I really wanted to love, but he went for her, the tramp, and poor Jack Home got left out in the cold."
Jack Home. His lost love. Leslie was brought to attention. "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Nothing consequential, but since you're buddy-buddy with Jack, I thought I'd mention it. You see, Jack Home was going with this girl Doris. He was a sociology instructor, as he is now, and she was a grad student working in the sosh office. Max Flagg had worked for the University Press-"
"Who?"
"Max Flagg. He went to work as a traveler for some tech publisher and this was in his territory. He met Doris and married her. Took her to New York when he was promoted to the home office. Doris wrote this friend of mine that they were going to take a long vacation this summer and spend a week or two here, since they still have so many friends on campus."
Leslie thought it over for a moment. "Strange to say. I received a letter todav myself. This Flagg person works for my publisher and he figures he can meet me and try persuading me to write some popularizations."
"Not strange at all. Since Max Flagg is no stranger here, your publisher figures he can meet you in a more social and less business way and build up more pressure on you. Succeed where others have failed."
"Obviously."
They sat quietly in the dark for a few minutes, listening to distant traffic and the shrilling of insects.
"Nice here," Audrey said. "Just insect music and a slice of moonlight."
After a moment, she arose, padded along the veranda, and sat down on the edge of Leslie's chair. She put a hand against Leslie's leg.
"No, Audrey. I don't feel like that."
"Take off your clothes."
"No, please. Not tonight."
Audrey squeezed. "Aw, come on. A girl's got to do something for herself. I go crazy if I don't now and then."
"Why don't you find yourself a man, damn it!"
"Because I want you!"
But, of course, that wasn't the whole story. Leslie sighed. If she went ahead with Audrey, that would be one more hollow, meaningless sensation, leaving her feeling all the more worthless and unfulfilled.
She put her hand to Audrey's knee. "Never mind me. I'll take care of you-"
"No! Together!"
Audrey found the edge of her panties. In spite of herself, Leslie savored the thrill.
"Come on, Les sweet," Audrey whispered. "Let's be naked together."
"All right. All right."
Quickly, trying not to think, Leslie stripped off her clothes and lay back on the deck chair, making room for Audrey to join her. Their fingers began to tease one another's bodies. So childish.
Leslie was bored. She was bored with Audrey. She was bored with this small academic community where everybody watched everybody else and knew too much about them. She was bored with teaching others the art and craft of love while never finding a satisfactory and lasting love for herself. She was bored to the point where she would have liked to scream.
As Audrey's touch increasingly excited her, Leslie closed her eyes and escaped from boredom to fantasy. She was alone, she was naked.
He appeared before her like a dark shadow, her lover.
They attracted one another irresistibly in every way; soul, body, spirit. There would be no stopping, no turning back.
He came toward her, slim, strong, cat-like and, as the moonlight struck his figure, she saw that he too was naked.
She shook with desire as his gaze raked her nude torso, shook with desire for him as she looked at his virile body.
He loomed near her, touched her breasts, her legs, kissed her waist, raised her to a height of passion she had never known before.
She groaned with pain and joy, twisting, squirming from his caresses, wanting him to take her.
And he took her tenderly, brutally, lovingly, savage-ly. Time after time, while she tightened her arms about him in return.
Until, until....
Like two chemicals reaching a critical point. They abruptly combined, flared up. a blazing white light, pulsing, pulsing, burning with liquid fire.
But of course this wasn't like that.
No gift of life. Nothing but sterility, emptiness, meaninglessness.
No tender brutal lover.
Just Audrey.