Chapter 7

Teni never knew how she was able to get through the remainder of the afternoon and the early evening hours. Through a self-imposed alcoholic haze, she dimly remembered a long succession of men. She was taken by at least four more men, mostly nearing middle-age, obviously successful, somewhat wealthy, somewhat well-dressed, neat, clean, but running to slight paunch and flabbiness. All were married, disillusioned and disenchanted with their wives, and were looking for stimulating sex and lost youth. Her feeling of complete debasement and worthlessness grew steadily.

It was 7:30 before she could leave the apartment with Gloria, who drove her back to the Continental to pick up Peter's car. She wasn't able to leave sooner, because the lovely redhead had made good on her earlier hint of a private lesbian party after the last John had departed.

Terri had been too tired, too emotionally drained to object, but when Gloria's tantalizing tongue had driven her up the walls, she had exploded in a phantasm of orgiastic excess. She had responded in kind, the redhead guiding her, teaching her how to arouse another woman and bring her to ecstatic heights.

On the drive through town, Terri's senses began to return as the effects of the gin began to wear off. She was cold sober as she began her drive on the freeway, eastward toward San Bernadino in Peter's car. There was one more rendezvous she must make. Jack Chavez was waiting for her. Then, cynically, the thought flashed across her mind: I - I suppose he'll want me to make love to him, too, after we ... she couldn't make herself think further about their grisly task.

But the other thought went on: I'll never be the same ... after today. I've been changed ... changed into a whore in one day! It's impossible. I'd never have believed it!

The hundred and thirty dollars in her purse was real enough. She would have to believe it. That's what she had taken away with her from Gloria's apartment.

But, Jack ... he's a man who has killed ... who killed trying to protect me from the very thing I've just been doing... for money ... except that none of them wanted to whip me, for kicks. C - could I let him do it to me, too, make love to me? Oh, God! I don't know! I owe him something ... Peter could have hurt me badly ... disfigured me ... or maimed me! And I am grateful to Jack! He didn't intend to hurt Peter... only tried to make him stop hurting me. Oh! I'm so mixed up ... I don't know what to think ... about anything!

Following Jack's directions, she turned off the freeway at the Cal Poly campus and followed the winding grades northward towards the lake. She drove carefully and slowly, keeping a sharp watch for the old battered truck that the gardener drove. She found it parked just off the road to one of the locked entrances to the recreation area. She parked behind the pickup, and Jack detached himself from the dark tree shadows and came over to the car, on the alert for anything amiss.

He leaned down and asked softly, "Anybody follow you?"

"Wh-why, no! I don't think so!"

"Good! Follow me to a place I found."

He was gone, striding away to clamber into the pickup. The motor roared and then he eased it back onto the road and drove ahead for about half a mile. There he parked again and waited for her.

Terri got out, her heart pounding.

Jack peered inside the car with a small flashlight. "Leave anything of yours in here?" he asked.

"N-No ..." Terri checked to make sure she had her purse.

Then, she watched in fascination as he re-started the car and maneuvered it until it pointed in the direction he wanted.

He wiped the car for fingerprints, then he rummaged in the back of the pickup under cover of some old branches and lifted out the blanket-wrapped body of Peter Marklin, her step-son. He unwrapped the corpse and placed it in the driver's seat of Peter's own car. Covering his hand with a cloth, he started the engine, opened the hood, placed a sugar cube so that it would dissolve in the water in the accelerator linkage, closed the hood and returned to the driver's side. He fastened the safety belt around the body, released the emergency brake and slammed the door.

Peter looked quite natural, Terri decided. She turned and walked toward Jack's truck, her eyes blinded by quick tears. It has to be for the best! Oh, God! It has to be!

Jack reached through the car window and yanked the shift lever into drive. The car's wheels spun as it kicked up gravel and then shot forward, suddenly arching out into space. There was a mighty splash, followed by eerie stillness. Jack walked to the cliff edge and looked over to make sure. The car containing Peter's body had disappeared.

Terri's sudden ear-splitting scream speared into the blackness.

"Ooooohh! Peter!"

He held her as great sobs of sorrow and relief wracked her body.

"Mrs. Marklin! Be quiet! Somebody might hear," he warned.

She paid no attention, and the desperate man did the only thing he knew to do. He slapped her hard in the face, commanding, "Shut up!"

Shocked, she cringed away from him, a hand going to her cheek in disbelief. Then she turned and fled blindly into the darkness.

He caught her within ten paces and pinioned her arms to her side, from behind. She struggled silently, only grunting, but her strength was nothing compared to his, and he held her tight and whispered urgently into her ear, "Stop it! We've got to get the hell out of here ... right now! If we're caught... they'll pin a murder rap on both of us!"

Murder!

Oh, God. She slumped back in his arms, drained and helpless, then turned within the circle of his arms to face him ... he had bulging muscles... the arms of a strong, virile man ... the arms of a man who had killed ... for her.

He murdered Peter for me.

A primeval lust was suddenly rising in her ... a desire to give herself to this man. At that moment there was nothing she wanted more ... and the knowledge was frightening. She whimpered deep in her throat, an animal-like groan that defied interpretation. She moved her hips, rotating them, against him. She raised her head, lips parted, in mute and universal signal... offering her lips to be kissed, and by inference her body to be used. The undulating hips made it specific ... she wanted him!

Jack was shocked, but pleased. Her signals were not wasted on him. She wants it! Christ, I never thought this could happen to me ... I'm her gardener ... and she's a movie star ... a rich woman. But not now! Man! Not now! We've got to get the hell out of here.' Now! Now, God damn it... first things first!

Brusquely, firmly, he spoke to her. "We've got to get in my truck and go, now! While we're riding along ... you can think this over... change your mind if you want to. If you do, I'll understand ... and no apologies ... we go our own ways ... O K.?"

He meant every word.

Dumbly, she allowed him to help her into the passenger seat of his old pick-up. He took the blanket and made a few passes at the tire tracks in the gravel. Satisfied, they would be hard to see, he got into the truck and kicked the ancient motor into life. Then, carefully staying within the speed limit, he drove back to the freeway, turned east toward the grape vineyards, finally turning on a lateral road connecting to the old highway south, thence to a dirt track that led deep into one of extensive vineyards he knew well from working there in his childhood days. He pulled to a stop, turned out the lights and sat back, a great sigh escaping from him.

"Well, it's done," he said, "but it's only a matter of time... a few days, maybe a week, before he's found."

Faltering, she asked, "Wh - what will you do ... n - now?"

"He was pensive for a moment. "I don't know, yet... but in a few days I think I will leave L A. There's nobody ... nothing to keep me here."

"D-dyou you have to ... to run ... away ...?"

"No! I don't have to ... but it might be best if I do... the police are going to ask questions ... I think I'll be hard to find ..." he explained.

"Jack..." she spoke his name softly, "I haven't changed my mind." Her hand crept out to find his thigh.

The pressure of her hand on his trembling body was almost more than he could take, he was so excited.

"I'll get a blanket... from the back," he said thickly, not trusting his voice.

She moved her hand reluctantly, surprised at her own boldness in initiating the sexual stimulation, opened the door and stepped down onto the sandy soil of the vineyard. She heard Jack rummaging around in the truck. Then he found the blanket, shook it, and spread it on the ground a few feet away, among the heavy-leafed vines.

Terri stood, thoughtfully, watching him. She had gone this far, she decided, therefore she might as well go the whole way. She would do everything she could to make this good for him. Then, $he realized she'd never felt that way before ... sex had never been very enjoyable for her, in the past - especially with her husband, George - but her new found eroticism and the extended knowledge forced upon her in such a short space of time ... and a self-knowledge that burned, searingly, into her brain, led her to the decision she had just made. She would make love to this man, bound to her by a macabre twist of fate; she would do it wildly, wantonly, with everything she had, offering him the whole of her for their mutual enjoyment. The lewd salaciousness of her thoughts began to tingle through her as she remembered the feel of his hard muscular thigh.

Leaning back against the fender, she removed her shoes and stockings, then reaching back, she unzipped her dress and stepped out of it; her slip followed and she stood in her panties and bra. She hesitated a moment before deciding that she would offer herself completely naked. The effect on him would be more stimulating, and he had already peeped at her in the privacy of her bedroom. She unsnapped her bra and removed it, freeing her voluptuous breasts to the cool evening breeze. Then she wriggled out of her flimsy white panties and added them to the pile of her clothing on the truck fender.

Jack got to his feet after smoothing the blanket. This can't be happening to me! Pretty soon I'll wake up and find out it was all a dream ... a poor man's hopeless dream!

He looked up and gasped for pure joy. God! She was standing there completely nude. She had meant it. She would be his ... she was, symbolically, offering herself to him.

Playing her new role of complete wanton, she walked toward him across the loamy sand. She held her head aloft, her eyes looking at him steadily as her hands came upto cup her breasts in provocative sexuality.

Jack watched her, marveling again at the vision of pure loveliness, remembering how he had watched her before, with only a wishful hope. Now, the hope was reality and his whole body throbbed with desire for her.

Swiftly, he stripped off his shirt, his sun-bronzed muscles ripping. Then, he loosened his belt and unzipped his pants, shrugging them down over his well-muscled legs. He kicked off his shoes and socks. Something held him back, however, from removing his shorts. Was it modesty, or a desire that it should be she who removed them? If she did it, it would be the final signal to him that she really intended to go through with it.

He stood, lean and powerful, waiting for her. He had made up his mind that he would not touch her first, It had to be her show!

In pristine, unashamed nakedness, she stepped on the blanket and took the final step to stand before him. She looked up into his face and said softly, "Here I-I am ... "

His strong arms went round her as she leaned in tight to his hard body and tilted her head up, her mouth opening slightly and her moist lips inviting his kiss. He tilted his head down and captured her soft, red lips. His kiss was hard, meaningful, and he was surprised when her bold, searching tongue slipped out to encircle his lips, then burst through his teeth, probingly, asking to be sucked. Her tongue was like a writhing, coiling snake in his mouth. He gasped with the power of the sensations generated in him. Below, his masculinity leaped into massive hardness.

Terri felt him through the cloth of his shorts.

She broke the kiss, knelt on the blanket, reached up to his waist and pulled the shorts down, gasping, "Oh!"

He grinned in the darkness, pleased with his attributes.

With trembling fingers she reached out to touch him gently.

Jack, standing above her, could not wait; he put a hand on either side of her head and moved his hips forward. Involuntarily, her lips rounded and her mouth opened. The delicious tormenting touch was too much for Jack. He moved his hips back several inches.

"That's enough of that ... for a while!" he breathed hoarsely.

"All right," she smiled and lay back on the blanket, knees up.

Jack's breath sucked in sharply, from the sudden excitement that leaped in him at the obscene position she had taken. She leaned back on her elbows looking up at him: her lips were wet and parted in a provocative little smile of shameless anticipation, and her roundly firm breasts rose and fell with her own sexual excitement.

He fell to his knees before the open gates of her shrine.

"I used to dream about this ..." he told her, "after I'd watched you ... in your bedroom ..."

"Y - You watched me?" she pretended shock.

"Yes!" He reached out to spread her wider, and she moaned, audibly.

"N - Now you've got the real thing," she breathed, "So please... go on and do it, Jack ... I'm so hot!"

With a rapidly expelled sigh of pleasure, followed by a gutteral, throaty noise, he moved forward to her hot, throbbing moistness.

"Ooooh!" she groaned, "That feels so gooooooood!"

Her pleasure-sounds came from her throat incessantly and he, too, grunted aloud with the sharp, sweet, almost painful sensation. He raised his head to look down on her and watch her squirm with delight at his smooth strokes that were plowing all before him ... driving ... driving deeper ... causing her teeth to clench and her face to contort with the urgency of her need and the intensity of her delight.

Terri began to squeal and moan, incessantly, under him as her head and hips tossed from side to side in unison.

On and on and on... their heaving bodies now soaked with sweat as they rocked together, locked as one ... on the sandy ground that was firm under the blanket.

"Oh! Oh, God!" she began to chant, "I'm almost there ... I'm going to ... Oh, Gooooooddddd!"

She lunged wildly, her hips bucking, and finally, she was there, awash in the surf of her passions from which she swam, gaspingly, giddy from the pressure of the depths.

"AAAaaaaggghhhh!" she screamed, "I'm coming ... Oh, God, I'm there! Ooooooooohhhhh!"

Then, suddenly, as she screamed out her climax, Jack felt it begin for him. It surged from him in a burning stream ... his breath had come ever faster to him as they labored together; now, with a loud groan of intense pleasure, he heaved her up off the ground with the terrific force of his final thrust.

Her body convulsed spasmodically, as wave after wave of her orgasm passed over her until at last, with a sigh of complete satisfaction, Terri crawled up beside him to smother his lips with her own before she collapsed and snuggled her body again into his strong, encircling arms.

They rested: they may even have slept for a few minutes in their satisfaction with each other. When she could speak, she murmured in his ear. "Why don't we go back to my house ... ? There's nobody there ... won't be until late Monday afternoon."

Unhesitantly, the gardener, so enthralled, so taken with his new lover, agreed. "All right... a bed'11 sure be a lot more comfortable than this rocky ground!"

"You'll stay with me through the night?" "Will I stay - just try to stop me from it!" he said, the vision of himself occupying that big bed in her plush bedroom with her beside him, beautiful, blonde and sexy, almost blotting out his reasoning mind, completely. But love is blind - so it is said - and justice, too, is not depicted as blind for nothing! And Jack Chavez's love for Terri was unreasoning ... and blind!