Chapter 5
It was a shock to Lena when the afternoon passed, then the evening, without a word from Dana. She had fully expected him to drop in, even if only for a few minutes, to make sure her injury was nothing serious. Even if he was tied up for the evening with some business appointment, he could phone. Certainly he could spare five minutes to ask her if she had reached home safely, to say that he was thinking about her.
But he didn't.
"For heaven's sake-" Joan exploded around eleven o'clock that evening. She was re-bandaging Lena's ankle, which she was sure would be back to normal in two or three days. Joan hadn't thought a doctor was necessary. There was no break, she was sure of that. "I do hope you aren't going to turn into a telephone watcher, kid."
In Joan's opinion, any girl who sat around fidgeting and squirming, on pins and needles, waiting for a call from a man who didn't bother to call, should have her head examined.
"This you call love?" Joan asked disgustedly, bringing Lena's gown for her to slip on after helping her off with the blue taffeta housecoat she was wearing.
"For all Dana knew, you might have had a broken leg. You might have been in horrible pain and needed emergency care instantly. So what does he do? Sends words for you to take a taxi home. Romeo is too busy to take time out to drive you home, or even to come down from his plushy office and take a look at his mangled sweetheart. Love! Bah!"
Lena laughed as she hopped across the room to the bed, leaning on Joan for support. "I wasn't mangled, honey. I just had a little wrench. You said so."
"But the boy friend didn't know that, Lena. As far as I can make out, he didn't give a hoot. Someone had to look after you and get you home, that's for sure. So it was up to a redheaded guy you'd never seen before. Which reminds me, in case you're interested, I like this Dan O'Connor."
"So do I," Lena agreed.
She propped herself up against pillows while Joan went out to the kitchen. Presently she returned with a tray on which she had two glasses of milk, and a plate of cookies which she had made that morning. Joan adored fussing around the kitchen. After a long, tedious nursing case, she said it was the best kind of vacation to experiment with new recipes, especially recipes for cakes and cookies. Joan was crazy about pastries.
They talked at length about Dan O'Connor while they nibbled and drank the milk. Giggling, Lena described the girl, Gracie, who had run up a fifty-dollar cosmetics bill and left Dan to pay the check.
He had infuriated her at first, naturally, with all his smart-alecky talk about her lovely creams being worth no more than a few cents, as if a man ever knew what he was talking about when he got on the subject of beauty products.
Lena grinned. "They take a look at some glamorous doll, and they imagine nature made her that way. Little do they know."
Joan neither agreed nor disagreed. She was a soap-and-water gal herself. And she truly believed that any girl who paid fifteen or twenty dollars in actual cash for a little jar of cream was bordering on lunacy.
"But when I needed help," Lena continued in a low, thoughtful voice, "he sure was wonderful."
He had been extremely thoughtful, too, in every possible way. After he had brought Lena home and been introduced to Joan, he had wanted to know what else he could do to help out. He had insisted on going out to do their marketing because, as he said, Joan would have her hands full looking after Lena. When he returned he had brought an expensive rib roast of beef. When Joan scolded him for his extravagance, informing him that she and Lena were not in the rib roast upper brackets, Dan O'Connor had produced his most beguiling grin. The roast was his little love offering. "I'm a very subtle guy," he said, and the gift of the roast was his subtle way of angling to be asked to stay and help eat it. What was more, he was a good cook, believe it or not. With Joan's permission, he'd cook the roast, medium to rare if that met with her approval. In addition, they'd have au gratin potatoes, and fresh peas, and an avocado salad for which he knew a very special recipe.
Also, said Dan O'Connor, just to prove he was a man with a sexy nature, he felt that a nice dinner like that deserved to be served with candles and yellow roses. "What's more, yellow roses go beautifully with your hair," he had said, and made a low bow as he handed Lena a dozen pale yellow rosebuds wrapped in moist tissue.
Dan had cooked the dinner, which was all that he had boasted it would be. Afterward he had insisted on doing the dishes. He had even gotten down and wiped up the linoleum with a moist cloth, leaving the kitchen immaculate. "There's a lonely guy," had been Joan's first comment after he left.
"Lonely?" Lena said, wondering how anyone could describe such a laughing, vital, gregarious man as Dan O'Connor as a lonely man.
Joan said a little wistfully: "If I were ten years younger I'd make a play for him myself."
After the lights were out and they were settled for the night, Joan fell asleep quickly. Lena did not.
Her ankle bothered her. So did the noise from the traffic which, ordinarily, she never even heard. And her mind seemed to have turned into a squirrel cage in which her thoughts raced around in utter confusion.
She couldn't get Dana off her mind, which was only natural. For months and months every move she made, every dream she dreamed, every plan for the future had been tied up with Dana in one way or another. She loved him so much-if it was love.
She was thirsty, and she reached for the glass of water Joan had put on the little table between their beds. She was uncomfortably warm, but as soon as she threw back the blanket she felt cold. She stared into the darkness. One thing was certain, she considered grimly. Up to date, Dana had given her very little in the way of happiness and contentment.
For the most part, it had been a matter of waiting on his pleasure.
She waited until the last minute to find out if they had a dinner date, or a date to go dancing or to a show, because there was always the chance that Dana would be tied up with a business conference, or with Corinne.
At the store, in the afternoon, she waited to find out if he would be free to drive her home.
On Sundays she waited for him to phone and tell her if they could drive to San Diego, or perhaps into Mexico, and spend the entire day together.
And she was still waiting for him to put a ring on her finger, and to make some definite suggestions as to when they would be married so that she could plan.
Suddenly she felt a hot wetness in her eyes. Her lips trembled as she whispered into the darkness, "It hurts, and I'm sick of being hurt."
He hurt her in a thousand little ways, without ever meaning to. Oh, she was sure that Dana never dreamed that he was hurting her by his neglect, his thoughtlessness. Most of it probably stemmed from the fact that she had allowed him to take her too much for granted.
Or was it that she loved too much, he not enough?
He might at least have phoned tonight to ask how I was.
Turning on her side, she eased her ankle into a more comfortable position, closing her eyes, trying once again to sleep. Her mind began to quiet down. Drowsily she wondered what her dad had meant when he had said, over the phone, that he and Mama had a big surprise for her. "We're saving it to tell you until we see you," he had said.
Nestling her cheek deeper into the pillow, Lena smiled sleepily. Maybe Dad had another oil well coming up. It would be just like him. In a lot of ways, her dad had been very lucky. So had her mother. They had certainly been lucky when they had married each other. There was a real marriage: two people growing together, living for each other, loving each other down through the years. Not that they ever talked about their love. They didn't need to. It was just there; you couldn't help seeing it, feeling it. It was in the consideration and tenderness they showed each other; in the way one would worry if the other was sick; in the way they looked at each other, even yet, after all the years.
Lena thought, Dad still believes mother is beautiful. He thinks she's the most wonderful woman in the world.
She slept, and waked to a room drenched in sunshine. Joan was standing by the bed with a tray of orange juice, coffee and toast. Joan pushed pillows behind her and inquired about the ankle, which Lena said felt fine. "You just had a phone call," Joan said. Dan O'Connor had called. There was a house on his For Sale list that might interest Lena. How about his driving her out to see it that afternoon?
"I said you'd be ready at two o'clock," Joan announced. "And believe me, sister, you'll be ready. Whether you feel in the mood or not, you are going house-hunting with Mr. O'Connor. I mean," Joan continued grimly, "you cannot go to the shop and stand on that ankle. And I won't have you sitting around here staring at that phone like a lovesick schoolgirl. I hope the VIP phones you while you're out. It will give me a fine chance to give that stuffed shirt a good piece of my mind. And let me tell you this, he won't like it in the least."
At the door, Joan turned to issue a final bit of advice. "Have yourself some fun, honey. Stop worrying about whether you're losing Dana Hall to another gal or aren't losing him. Do yourself a favor and forget that guy for an afternoon. Try having fun with another guy. You might like it better than you think."
Lena laughed. "I thought he was going to show me a house. Strictly business, isn't that the idea?"
"Don't play dumb, baby," Joan said, and left it at that.
Lena tried hard to get Dana out of her mind. But she just couldn't admit to herself that she no longer cared for him. If she had known what he was up to at that moment, however, it wouldn't have been hard at all for Lena to dismiss him, if not throw him out of her life altogether.
Because Irene from the shop, and Dana were back at his apartment again, having taken off work early together. And not only were they alone, sitting on the couch again while drinking, but Dana was telling Irene how amused he was by the fact that he had been fooling Lena for so long.
"I guess she thinks she loves me, or something like that," Dana told Irene, pouring her another drink.
"Well, as long as she's not getting any of this," Irene replied, grabbing hold of Dana's cock through his trousers, "I could care less."
They clinked glasses and made a short toast.
"To fucking," Dana announced.
"And sucking!" Irene answered.
Before Dana could put his drink down, Irene had slipped down between his legs. She fumbled with his zipper, but finally managed to yank it open. Reaching into his fly with two hands, she brought out his prick, marveling at the way it was growing before her very eyes.
"I've been waiting for this all day," she hissed, licking her lips.
"Well, be my guest," Dana sighed.
Finishing his drink, Dana then set the glass on the table. He thrust out his hips to give Irene all the room she needed to suck his cock, and then he sat back into the plush couch to enjoy the blowjob she was about to give him.
She clenched his cock in her fist, squeezing it tightly until the head turned a bright red. Then she stuck out her tongue and smoothed it all around the tip of his cock. A few bubbles of pre-cum dribbled out of his piss-slit, and she lapped them up eagerly, enjoying the salty, pungent taste.
Then she took the tip of his penis into her mouth, locking her lips just below the ridge of his dickhead. Securing her lips tightly around his shaft, making an airtight seal, she began to suck until her cheeks collapsed. Jacking her hand slowly up and down his shaft, the feeling Dana received was exquisite.
"Oh, that feels so good," he murmured, bucking his hips off of the couch in a languorous fucking motion. "Just do it a little faster...yeah, like that...ohhhhh, honey, just like that. There...now...try and grab my...my balls...ohhhhh...with your other...hand. Yeah, like that...yeah, like that. Too much, honey. I'm gonna shoot it. . . into...your...ahhhhh...mouth!"
Irene let go of his shaft so she could slide her mouth up and down. She kept her lips tight, and managed to duplicate the feeling of a hot, constricting pussy that was fucking his penis into ecstasy.
Dana was enjoying her blowjob immensely, but he was not beyond the point where he had forgotten about her pleasure. So as she feverishly sucked, he tried to move his hands down to caress her tits.
Her big breasts jiggled erotically as she moved her head up and down. And even though her body was in a flurry of movement, Dana still slipped his hands down into her blouse to grip and squeeze her nipples. As he worked on her tits, he looked down over her shoulders to watch her beautiful ass move from side to side as her entire body moved and swayed as she ate his cockmeat.
Even though he felt as though he would come at any moment, Dana still wanted to see her naked. So he pushed her up from his crotch and begged her to take her clothes off.
"I've just got to see you...and your cunt and your ass, baby. I've just got to."
Irene was thoroughly enjoying giving him the blowjob, and she hated to leave if only for a moment. But she understood that the sight of her luscious curves would only make his orgasm that much more intense, so she did as he asked.
Wiping off her mouth with the palm of her hand, she then peeled out of her dress and under things as quickly as she could. She smiled up at Dana lewdly as she undressed, admiring the pleased look on his face, and also admiring the sight of his spit-drenched cock still twitching between his legs. She could hardly wait to start sucking on it again.
From the way his penis was throbbing, she knew he would come soon. So she squirmed back between his legs and lowered her head to her task. Opening her mouth wide, she swallowed his cock and took it all in. By the time she got it all down, her nose was buried in his pubic hair and his balls were nudging into her chin.
He relished the feeling of her tits flopping all over his legs and thighs as she sucked. And he couldn't keep his eyes off her smooth, bobbing ass. Gripping the back of her head, he gave in to his climax and filled her mouth with cum.
Irene swallowed every drop, squeezing on his softening shaft to get more semen. Dana just sighed contentedly as she finished him off, closing his eyes and giving in to the wonderful afterglow that accompanied an overwhelming orgasm.