Chapter 6

Ken was chairman of an assorted group of Glendon Fall's teachers who had been assigned the after hours task of revising the English curriculum for the entire school system. They had been meeting for three months now and, with the end of the school year looming they were pressed to finish their report by June 10.

Under the guise of meeting with his committee (Diane paid the scan test possible attention to his professional entanglements) he managed to get away on Thursday night. Now the lights in Tessa's apartment were muted. The high-fi equipment was electrifying the room with the haunting atonals of Richard Strauss' Don Juan. With Tessa's lovely, compliant body in his arms, Ken impatiently held off, contenting himself with mere kisses and caresses, desultory talk while his mind vigorously leaped ahead of itself. To the time when...

Tessa was radiant that night, her joy at having him with her setting her eyes afire, giving her complexion a healthy, vibrant glow. She hummed at snatches of the tone poem, her voice husky and provocative. That she also was anticipating the evening was evident in the fact that she wore an opaque set of lounging pajamas, orange red, made of a buffed silky material, a loose fitting ensemble beneath which (Ken had already checked) she wore absolutely nothing.

This was that kind of evening.

His heart felt overlarge, he felt proudly triumphant knowing that there was a woman so blatantly anxious for him, a woman who was open about her desires, about her need for him. Just thinking about her made him want to yell with joy; made him dizzy.

The music crescendo, became haunting and passionate, throwing raw gasoline on the open hearth of their raging lust. They kissed again and again, Ken unable to keep his hands under control, Tessa making no move to stop him when he stroked her in lazy, inflaming circles, when he slid the silk against her smooth, supple legs, when he cupped her breasts, the need maddening in his palm.

The exciting, pulse maddening kisses, Tessa's lips again inviting his to play, made Ken's body ache with desire. He wanted her. Desperately maddeningly. But he wanted to wait, to let this sweet, tearing pain mount. Until he should find the pain well nigh unbearable.

And then, when they were all but screaming with need, they would see about assuaging pain. In a way only a man and a woman can eradicate that sweet pain.

"Were you shocked the other night?" Tessa said. "At some of the things I did ... and said?"

"Maybe I should ask you the same thing."

"No," she sighed, letting her lips flaccidly chew on his throat. "I wasn't shocked. I liked that. That all added to the final effect. And, after all, that's what really counts."

With preening confidence Ken let his hand fall, catch her right breast, let his fingers gather the nipple, tweak and roll it into a hard button, the feeling of silk and turgid flesh especially dazzling. "I suppose you're right. I was afraid you'd think I was some kind of a weirdo or something. I didn't want that."

There are infinite varieties to lovemaking. A person should never commit himself to any set pattern. He or she should do whatever variation appeals at the moment. I liked you; you made me feel like a queen when you adored me like that. Incidentally, don't be surprised at some of the things I might do. Maybe tonight, some other night. Depending on my mood. You see, I practice what I preach."

"You devil," he husked, "you gorgeous devil."

"Mmmmm." she fell back even more limply, "don't stop, lover. That feels so good. Baby ... gentle, gentle . .

In essence, Ken described his own feelings about his strange reactions that first night, of course drawing in the fact that he had been mostly grateful because she was the woman his own wife wasn't. "I promise I won't get carried away like that again."

"Don't stop on my account. like I said, I loved you. You can do that any time you want. That's the trouble with our society. Everything that's a little different's considered immoral or perverted. Hell, between lovers there should be the widest possible latitude, they should welcome any show of love whatsoever, they should adjust, take things for what they are, a symbol of what they themselves are doing to their love partner. That's like a sort of back-handed compliment. I was tremendously proud when you loved me like that. 'I did that to him.' I kept telling myself, 'I'm making him react like that.' "

"You sound like some sort of an authority. And at your tender years."

She smiled wanly. "I'm no authority, really. Though I have read an awful lot of books on the subject. Also, I know my own reactions, my own philosophy."

"And what is that?"

"Than anything that contributes to the total effect of the love act is normal and proper and..." She shivered, put his hand over his, guided it on her breast. ". . . so wonderful. I draw no lines whatsoever, I love to make love for love's sake alone. For total sensation."

"When those beautiful lights start flashing, when I feel like someone's threading me on a hemp rope, then I'm out of things. I'm away from this grubby world, I'm living, really living. I'm outside of myself, irresponsible, I owe nobody anything. That's like being dead, transported to a new world. And yet you're alive, you're enjoying every glorious second."

She paused, sipped at her martini. "So do your damndest with me, baby. Love me any way you want, left-handed, right-handed, from behind, upside down, that's all the same to me."

"You talk a mighty inflaming line of stuff."

She poked her tongue into his ear. "I do more than talk, darling."

"I know," he shuddered. "Damn, do I know!"

"Aren't you almost done with that drink?"

"Pretty soon. Don't rush me, I'm enjoying this too much. It's not every day I can talk to a woman as frankly as this." He sighed, kissed her again. "It's not every day I run onto a woman like you, period."

"Flattery'll get you anywhere with me." She pulled up. "Ooops, there goes Don Juan. What would you like to hear now?"

"Something that takes a long, long time."

"How about Mahler? I'll put him on, set the machine on automatic. We'll be fixed for hours."

She refilled their glasses before sitting down again. "Miss me?" she said, snuggling close, holding his glass to his lips until he'd sucked down almost half of the liquid. "Primer," she giggled.

For long moments they kissed and embraced, as if they'd been separated for a long, long time. "T wish you'd take those damned clothes off, baby," she said.

"In time. There are a few other things we have to discuss yet."

"like what?"

"I've been wondering about all that high powered talk. The Lady Chatterly bit. What was that all about?"

She was not the least embarrassed. "That should be obvious by now after all I've said. Tell me, did that have any detrimental effects?"

"Hardly."

"And you enjoyed saying those things, too, didn't you? That was like something inside you, too long locked up and forbidden was let out. And you felt better afterward didn't you? That made the sum total of your lovemaking that much more earth shaking, n'est-ce pas?"

Ken studied the question a long time before he decided she was right. Everything she'd said was 100 per cent true. "You should develop your doctor's thesis on that premise. Damn, you make me feel like such a babe in the woods."

"Stick with me, honey. I've got lots more where that came from." A great tremor went through her. her eyes glazed briefly. She sat up, drained the rest of her drink. "I can't wait much longer, Ken," she sighed. "You've kept me waiting too long already."

She struggled up on her knees and began pulling at his necktie. "Here if you won't get started yourself." He tried to fight her away, but she was a clinging, laughing leech. "No, darling. Let me. Let me undress you."

Intrigued by the idea of having a woman undress him, Ken surrendered to the attention. Lying back against the cushions, he got the biggest charge out of seeing Tessa kneeling before him, removing his shoes, his socks, peeling his trousers down his legs. Now his suit jacket, his shirt.

Finally, his under-shorts and tee shirt.

Until he was totally naked, vulnerable and exposed before her.

Her eyes darkly feral, a strange, twisted smile on her lips, Tessa still knelt before him, her gaze bold. Then she was crowding him she was pushing her bosom against him, she was kissing his shoulder. Until at last, wracked with tremors, she let her head slide to the planes of his hard chest. He jerked as her lips closed on each hard extrusion in turn.

Gravely, moved by a hurricane of desire and awe, Ken let his hands go the buttons of her pajama top to undo them one by one. Then the garment was open, his hands inside it each supporting one magnificent, melony breast a ministration that turned the woman even wilder. She righted herself, shrugged the jacket off to pose before him in her exquisite nakedness, wearing only the pajama bottoms.

Immediately she delivered herself to his hands again. Dropped her head to his chest again. And, as the fanaticism mounted, the Mahler swelling and thundering, she began to sigh chokingly, she let her hands go wild on his legs and back. Finally, her eyes rolling in her head, she pressed her lips against him.

It was the first time a woman had ever done this for him. and he was appalled, uncertain of what to do or say.

"No, Tessa," he moaned, the sensation something to drive him out of his mind. A burning, too-intense pain, intermixed with sweet, sighing joy. "You shouldn't. You don't have to..."

She paused, her face curved in a wanton smile, her eyes curiously dreamy. "Remember what I said? When the spirit moves you ... why not? I indulged you the other night. This's your turn to indulge me."

Her expression turned almost contemptuous. "Now lie back. Enjoy yourself. Let me enjoy you."

Caught between two maddening fires, Baylor didn't know what to do. But finally he let his senses rule, he let Tessa have her way. Submitting, he let her take her will with him.

"In the bedroom," she seethed. "Hurry." She teetered before him. "Come here first. Take off the bottoms for me."

Wanting to pursue this insane moment a few steps further Ken took his time with the disrobing. He knelt before her, slid the garment down her legs, helped her step out of the clinging folds.

She broke away. "Hurry darling," she panted. "I can't wait. I want you."

They were in the darkened bedroom, the orchestra crashing like an angry sea outside their door. She withheld herself from him until.. .

"Say them, Ken. Use the words. All the words."

Beside himself with an aboriginal need, he said the words. He choked and spat them, let them tumble over each other in their haste to be re-articulated, to be reborn.

"That's a good boy," she hissed. She sighed in throaty rapture.

Then she was describing her sensations, she extorted detailed description of how he had enjoyed her recent attentions to him.

Now the words broke from both their throats. They struggled for further verbal Everests to climb.

And then they were on the mountain top...

It was eleven o'clock, and Diane Baylor was in bed, for some unaccountable reason unable to sleep. Again it was a balmy spring night. The bedroom window was open and she could hear the automobiles thrumming past on Sixteenth Avenue. Restlessly she moved on the bed, tried to get comfortable. She wished Ken would get home. She was a creature of habit; she didn't really sleep soundly until he was beside her. This wasn't physical attraction, of that she was sure. Just that she liked the security of having him next to her, warm and strong and protective.

Or was this physical? she pondered, sensing an unfamiliar restlessness. Heaven knows I've been thinking about him all evening long. And now, just a minute ago, didn't I wake from a half doze, almost as if he was here, as if he'd been touching me. The way he does?

Diane, she chided in giddy surprise, what's getting to you?

But try as she might, she couldn't shake the troublesome reveries. She couldn't help going back to Monday night almost two weeks ago, when she and Ken had made such thrilling love. Every intimate, exotic detail was unearthed, embroidered upon.

Until she realized with almost bombshell shock: I wanted him. Tonight I want him, I want to see if he can be as good again. Without the drinking, without the crass motives. Ken, darling, hurry home from your stuffy old meeting. Hurry, hurry.

It was a very surprised (appalled and panicked are even better words) Ken Baylor who quietly crawled into bed beside his wife not more than thirty minutes later. Who found her waiting, totally naked. Who found her giggling thickly, her hands all over him. Kissing him with eager kisses.

And even though he'd just been royally loved, the novelty of his wife making the overtures twice within two weeks took unmistakable toll, generated superficial revival.

She tore at his pajamas, her breath quavery and rapid. She sighed hoarsely when he touched her breasts. She dragged his head down herself. All without saying a word.

Ken certainly did not want this love bout. But he knew he had to produce. Lest Diane get wise in one big hurry.

So he fought valiantly. Saw Diane through. And still could not reach his own deliverance. He attacked her more viciously.

Tomorrow, Diane thought, I'll hate myself for this. But tonight, he's wonderful, I don't care. This's like I'm discovering my husband all over again. Darling, you're grand, grand. Don't ever stop. I won't mind.

He almost didn't. But at long, long last-