Chapter 2

If this IS true, then she must get help.

Irene tells herself this, but she also tells herself that there could be a real problem with that.

Randy Buck is, after all, a heavy hitter, a major player in today's world and not some successful, well off nonentity.

So that it's all well and good for her to recognize that she has a problem.

And, no doubt, a very healthy response to this realization is the recognition of the need for help with getting over, getting beyond it.

So far, so good.

But.

The wife of Randy Buck?

The wife of Randy Buck is Mrs. Superman.

And Mrs. Superman is flawless, is without blemish, physical or otherwise.

Randy Buck waited a long time to find her.

He is over fifty and she, a little more than half his age, is his first wife.

Of good family, wealthy parentage, social register, all that, she was considered a real catch for him- and vice versa.

Their romance and courtship?

It was an odd mixture of the intimate and the impersonal.

That same drifting in and out of reality which characterizes her life with him was typical of their entire relationship, from introduction to marriage.

They met at a cocktail party, the gala event of the season-some said of the decade-to celebrate the christening of the yacht-the new, the replacement yacht-of Mr. and Mrs. Birmingham Steele IV.

And Irene was apprehensive about meeting Randy Buck.

Frankly, he frightened her.

It was rumored that the Steeles' original yacht had been destroyed at sea as the result of sabotage directed against Randy Buck, who was giving a party on board at the time-a very bizarre party, some said, half the survivors having been picked up wearing hoods and boots, the women's stiletto-heeled, along with black mesh stockings, garter belts and push-up corselets revealing boobs and buns and snatches.

And this was not the first time Randy Buck had been connected with rather macabre goings on.' His chauffeur-she forgets his name-took the fall when an S&M sex club, involving similar costumes was uncovered at a place called Buck's Castle.

But rumor has it that the mysterious leader of the club, the mysterious Seneschal, was not the , chauffeur, but none other than Randy Buck himself, who not only denied all knowledge of the club, but promptly gave Buck's Castle to the state, subsidizing its complete conversion into an orphanage and establishing an annual endowment for its maintenance and operation, some said as blackmail payment exacted by a mysterious enemy, lest the truth be pursued and made known.

With his broad shoulders, his large, heavy frame, his iron-grey crew cut and rugged, suntanned face, Randy Buck looks very much like just the sort who would be in charge of such things, not at all someone you'd care to meet in a dark alley, as they say.

On the rebound from a first, unsuccessful marriage with the scion of one of the nation's older families, Irene was attending the party with her parents, who insisted that she go because, after all, "all the better people will be there".

So she went.

And her father was the one who insisted on introducing her, explaining to her, at the last minute, when they were already on board, that this was the real reason he wanted to bring her to the affair.

And Irene, to give herself courage, insisted upon downing a few cocktails first.

Which did, in fact, seem to help.

So that she was prepared to face the ogre.

And her father, seeing what she was up to, had to be the one to cut her off, before she could become too obviously under the weather.

In the event, it worked.

Sort of.

Because- "Randy?"

"Yes, Bill?"

"Like you to meet my daughter, Irene."

"Charmed, I'm sure." And Randy even manages a rather courtly bow, smiling at her.

"You're not really the monster people make you out to be, are you, Mr. Buck?"

"Irene!

"Randy, I'm terribly sorry!

"I fear that my daughter has had much too much to drink and she undoubtedly has you confused with someone el-"

"Please, Bill! It's quite all right, I assure you.

"And you, my dear, just call me Randy.

"Everyone does, even the people who work for me."

"Randy. Charming name for a monster."

"Listen," her father says quickly, taking her by the elbow, "I can see that I had better-"

"Leave well enough alone, Bill, why don't you?" Randy says.

"But-"

"Go! Leave us! Circulate!

"I find your daughter not only charming but fascinating."

"All right, Randy," her father says, giving a false, hearty chuckle and a shrug and his daughter a last apprehensive look before turning away, leaving them alone together.

"Nothing about the ball teams, the health clubs, the restaurants, only the dark side of life-assuming, that is, that my life actually has a dark side-seems to interest you, Irene."

"Everyone has a dark side, Randy," the champagne inside her says; a very smart-assed, champagne-cocktails-at-a-party type thing to say.

"Oh? Tell me about your dark side, why don't you, Irene?" Randy invites, snagging two champagne glasses from a circulating waiter, en passant, handing her one, then clinking the other with hers before sipping.

Irene drains her glass, stalling for time, before replying, "I said everyone has a dark side, Randy. I didn't say that that side of them has an active life in the real world.

"Like, like most women, I suppose, I have an occasional fantasy, a dream on the bizarre side."

"A daydream or a nightmare?"

"Either. Both. I don't know, I don't dwell on such things.

"Do you?"

And he laughs.

"Back to my dark side again, eh?

"What if I were to tell you that my dark side is no more and no less what any other man's dark side is-a simple giving in to the baser appetites?

"Would you find that-boring?"

"Quite possibly."

Good answer, she tells herself. Very sophisticated, very smart-ass, very... cocktail party.

And to think, her dad was worried about her handling herself after a little of the bubbly.

"Oh, dear! And I did so want to fascinate you."

"I find very few men fascinating with their clothes on."

And she can't believe she said that; maybe her father was right after all.

"Let us hope they are indeed very few," Randy replies. "Otherwise, your reputation might turn even darker than mine."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that at all the way it must have sounded.

"Or perhaps I did, a little.

"It's just that, when you attend as many of these things as I do-as I'm sure you do-the whole scene rather quickly begins to pall.

"I'm charming and empty to you, you're equally charming and hollow to me, the champagne flows, the d'colletage shows, the innuendo going nowhere grows, until you want to do something or say something, anything to, to... stop it, to put an end to this whole, meaningless... thing.

"So you don't keep having to go somewhere in order to go nowhere.

"I didn't want to come here today.

"My father insisted, just as he insisted that I meet you.

"And I've actually had too much to drink, especially for someone who really doesn't drink at all and I've made a fool of myself in front of a man whose only crime is probably being too successful for most people's taste."

"In vino Veritas," Randy says, smiling.

"Pardon?"

"In wine there is truth. Latin.

"You seem to have hit the nail right on the head.

"The only question is, Could you have done it without the champagne?"

"Try me."

"You mean that?"

"You live at home with your parents?"

"I do now."

"Then it would appear that I should call on you, as they used to say in a gentler age."

"You do that," she says, feeling slightly dizzy from the champagne, beginning to sway.

Quickly, Randy catches her by an arm, so that she falls against him.

"Perhaps we had better get you somewhere where you can lie down," he says.

"Just for a few minutes, yes, that might be the thing to do," she agrees, her voice articulate, but seeming to come from someone else, someone standing in the middle distance, so that the sound is quite audible, but flat, in the way voices lose their resonance in the outdoors.

And she can feel his iron grip, just above an elbow, as they make their way slowly, smiling and nodding, to a companion way, passing down its carpeted length until Randy unerringly picks a door, opening it and escorting her inside.

"You certainly know your way around," she says, sitting down heavily on the side of the bed of the luxurious cabin.

"The design parallels roughly that of the Steeles' old vessel," he replies.

And a warning buzzer goes off in her head.

"The one you, the one you, uh-"

"The one on which I, along with several close friends almost lost our lives, thanks to the action of an enemy.

"A man in my position has enemies."

"How exciting."

And her head feels heavy, as though, unless she lays it down quickly, it will pull her off the bed where she sits and onto the floor.

"I'm going to have to, have to-" And she lies down.

"Here, let me get those shoes off before you ruin our hosts' bedspread with your heels."

And he suits his action to his words.

And sits beside her on the bed.

"For somebody who managed to cost our hosts a whole ship, you're very considerate."

Seated beside her on the edge of the bed, he gives her a baleful smile.

"That's very... perceptive of you."

Because she has told him, in essence, that, while one may indeed have enemies, they do not customarily go about trying to destroy him and those with him for no reasons other than business affairs.

So that the enemy who tried to physically destroy him and who did destroy the ship, not even his ship but that of his friends, the Steeles, was, is personal.

And something tells her that he has done something to earn such enmity-he and those who were with him.

"Costume party, wasn't it?"

"Uh, yes. Yes it was."

So that part is true as well, she thinks.

Odd that everyone was wearing more or less the same costume, though.

"Nobody had, uh, had time to, to... change their clothes.

"Rather embarrassing, actually. Private party at sea, international waters and all that and one hardly expects to require rescue by the Coast Guard- if that's what it was."

This last said with a tinge of bitterness.

Obviously, he suspects, no he knows, that the whole thing was a setup.

Just as he undoubtedly knows who this enemy was, is.

"Who uh, who did it and why?" she asks, speaking clearly, all right as long as she doesn't try to move.

"Later, perhaps, when I know you better, when you're in a more uh, receptive condition, shall we say?"

"A man with enemies," she says, "personal enemies.

"I find that... exciting."

And she runs a hand down the sleeve of his white dinner jacket.

Tricky stuff, alcohol.

At a certain point, it skews the mind, causing it to affect a lack of control which it does not in fact feel.

As though allowing the body to react in an uncontrolled fashion while remaining a combination observer and agent provocateur.

Thus does she watch herself vamp-she can think of no other term for it-Randy Buck.

"Are you uh, are you sure you want to go where this is leading?" he asks.

"Come, come, Randy. I'm a divorced woman and this is a party.

"Not, not... your kind of party, apparently, but a party nonetheless.

"Let's put some life into it, if only for the two of us, waddaya say?"

He shrugs, gets off the bed and secures the door by its inside dead bolt.

And removes his jacket.

And keeps on going, revealing his big bull's body, thick and amply fleshed over what were once, may still be, bulging muscles.

Even his heavy, flaccid member reminds her of a bull's pizzle, swinging and bouncing as he moves toward her.

And she rolls over to let him get at the back of her cocktail dress, which he deftly unfastens. He slides it down her unresisting body, leaving her in stockings and garter belt, bra and panties.

Since she is on her flip side, he undoes the bra before rolling her over.

And removes it from her chest slowly, as though tantalizing himself with the view as it reveals itself to him.

He looks down at her large, full breasts as she looks up at him.

He removes her panties, leaving the garter belt and stockings on.

And she wonders if their being black might have something to do with that decision.

And now, he is sucking her tits, raising the doorbells of her nipples, one at a time, to rubbery erection, as he kneads and fondles her breasts with both hands.

And he proves quite the skilled and considerate lover and not at all the sadistic brute his appearance would seem to imply, as he travels down her body, helping himself to mouthful after mouthful of her flawless flesh, moving lower and lower, his head gliding down her on his tongue.

And she happily raises and spreads her legs, giving him a clear target.

As he wallows his face into her snatch, mouth open, both hands bracing the backs of her thighs.

A tricky thing indeed, alcohol, she thinks.

Because she uses it as an excuse for what is happening here.

She tells herself that if she were sober, she would not be doing this.

She tells herself as well that, if she were really all that drunk, she would not be feeling this, would not be so keenly aware of the flickering motion of his tongue as it strums her joy buzzer, would not be so physically responsive to such attentions, as her clit engorges, heats up, begins radiating lascivious sensations.

Which quickly spread their arousal, their warmth, sending out wave after wave of sexual electricity, surging through her entire body, making her very fingertips tingle with her sexual reawakening.

She's drunk, is she?

Then where is the numbness, the lassitude, the indifference?

How is it that she is not passing into slumber, Randy's efforts notwithstanding?

No, she tells herself, you're not all that drunk.

Too drunk to drive, perhaps, but then this is not a car.

Too drunk to dance, maybe, but this is not a ballroom.

And now, possibly, too drunk to speak coherently, but she is not giving a speech.

So that, cleverly enough, she supposes, giving credit where credit is due, she is just drunk enough to be doing this right, for him, but above all for herself.

Since the divorce, she has been in need of something very much like this.

And now, why not?

Why not allow her naturally voluptuous, sensual beauty work its charms on the likes of a Randy Buck?

Hell, her father might even approve, if he knew what was going on.

Step in the right direction, if it works, right, Dad?

Damn straight.

And she sees that it is working.

Because, even now, he is tongue-fucking her, his long, thick, powerful, salivating tongue shafting smoothly in and out of her hot, juicy cunt, rubbing her joy buzzer this way and that as it moves.

And raising her higher and higher up the rainbow of her arousal, his enthusiasm obvious, his scalp glowing rosy with the engorged blood of his aroused passion through his crew cut as he avidly devours her pussy.

And now, he pulls his face back.

And sits back on his heels, his cock rising, huge and stiff, from his bush.

Looking at her.

Looking at his target, the object of his rampant lust.

And leaning forward, bracing himself with one hand beside her, twisting his body, guiding his mighty marauder into her drooling cunt with one hand, then settling down on her, in her.

And-his eyes are closed.

What does he see, she wonders?

Herself in one of those costumes with the leather hood and the pushup corselet?

Himself in leather hood and black boots?

Because it is women who ordinarily close their eyes when they fuck, she reflects and the men who cannot get enough of the detail, the reality of the action, who prefer doing it with the lights on.

So that yes, she knows that his mind is elsewhere.

With her still, perhaps, but not here, not like this.

But that's okay too, she tells herself.

Because the mind is seldom where the body is in the sexual act.

And this is no insult to the partner, who serves as the physical, if not the mental inspiration for the action.

Rather, it is merely a way of reconciling the real with the ideal, the image with the substance, the self with the world.

Still, where is he right now? she wonders.

Because his face, red, eyes tightly shut, beads of sex sweat beginning to form on his heavy brow, he is humping away on her, his strokes long, powerful, steady.

And that is quite a considerable organ he has here, she notes, stretching and filling her cunt as it pistons in and out of it, stimulating her every nerve ending with its thrusts and withdrawals, even as her snapper of a pussy sucks his cock as though she were giving him a blowjob.

So that here, now, she finds her body-and therefore herself-responding to him fully.

So that he is, at least in the sheer physical sense, equipment and performance-wise, the right stuff.

Daddy will no doubt be very pleased, if the right thing happens, if, as a result of this, the fuck, the whole scene, she becomes Mrs. Randolph Arlington Buck.

Even though they are approximately the same age, Randy and her father.

So that dear old dad can never call Randy "son".

Still, her future will be secure in a major way and that, after all, is what really matters.

And if she is happy and satisfied into the bargain, well, that's the icing on the cake.

And now, Randy accelerates, redoubling his efforts.

He is pistoning in and out of her faster and faster.

But not once does he open his eyes.

If he did, then he would see her face, every bit as red as his.

He would see her body too taking on the sheen of marble in the lighting of the cabin as her sexual sweat forms.

Because yes, she sweats like an athlete when she fucks-if it's the right fuck.

And Randy certainly is.

So that here, now, she feels it, the old feeling, the one she has not felt since the divorce, the one she has not felt since long before that, actually, as it comes over her.

It.

Meaning the pleasure beyond pleasure.

Meaning that fundamental, elemental complex of lascivious sensation which rises from a spark in the farthest inner distance and then explodes into a silent mushroom cloud which expands outward to fill her entire being, engulfing, absorbing the pleasure of her arousal, adding it to itself as it progresses, taking her over.

The pleasure beyond pleasure, it is and she does not have it; it has her.

And she lets it.

She surrenders herself to it, freely and without reservation, just as she surrenders herself to its representative.

Who is even now in its firm, irresistible, exquisitely delicious grip.

So that the both of them are being tossed and turned, writhing against each other like puppets on invisible strings being operated by an unskilled but salacious puppeteer.

As he comes and comes into her pussy, whose contractions from her series of multiple orgasms milk his powerful prick of its load.

So that they zoom and soar together through that shared sexual paradise.

And yet it is through dark, subterranean realms of darkness that they career, borne aloft on hot, dusky bat wings.

At least, that is her vision and she suspects that his is no brighter, is, in fact, something far darker, far more constricting, to her, to himself, possibly to them both.

Thus do they glide through inner darkness.

Thus do they land back on the bed as their shared climax expends its energy.

Thus do they separate, his eyes opening at last to gaze down upon her.

And to remain there, unmoving, most of his weight supported on his hands, planted on either side of her, cock slowly detumescing in her drooling cunt as she lowers her legs around him.

And she looks at him, returning his intense stare, feeling cold sober now, as though she has sweated the alcohol out of her system.

And he says, "It's time. Let's go find your father."

And her pussy quivered.

It did that whenever he gave her orders.

And she knew that whenever she obeyed him Tom now on, her cunt would be wet.