Chapter 2
Terry Anson sat in the comfortable leather chair at the end of John Carrol's desk, suddenly relieved at the release of her own inner tensions at his friendliness. She scoffed, inwardly, at herself for not believing the information she'd been so careful to gather about this man. Her display of sex attraction in their initial seconds together was insurance-so intent was she on capturing his attention until she could focus it on the ability of which she was so confident-she could no more have avoided giving the subtle invitation than she could have flown to the moon.
Now that she'd turned it on, she was incapable of turning it off. She'd been told she didn't have to trade John Carrol anything for a spot in his show ... if she had the moxie ... and Terry knew she had it. But if there was no spot for a singer open-if he recognized her ability but didn't like her style-if, for any of the myriad reasons a performer fails to get a job, despite having a world of talent-she was determined to insure the "ifs" clear out of the picture.
Terry crossed her legs, deliberatly, noting the instinctive follow-on of John Carrol's eyes with satisfaction. She knew what the picture was-she'd sat before a mirror and crossed her legs in every dress she owned before wearing it for an interview and this dress had a most pleasing effect, Terry knew. The warmth shimmered in her eyes, a far more subtle, more suggestive and intimate invitation to romance than the almost blatant urge to sex which was the result of Frankie's invitation. Terry, too, was bold in her restrained offering, but she was honest. An affair with her could be the thing of a moment ... or a binding one, for a time. She gave the impression, to John's well-developed ability to judge people, of a female who felt deeply, loved violently-but was ruled by a hard-core practicality. If an affair was necessary to her success, with Terry singing came first. She'd put just as much into insuring the opportunity to sing as she'd put into her performance under the lights.
This John Carrol saw, recorded mentally, and-in doing so-felt a small shock of surprise. He had judged females-lots of them-for a lot of years. It was automatic; it was a part of his job. But what surprised him was the excitement he felt at the judgment of this girl. He knew it was something within him rather than within her, though he had to admit she was an engrossingly and excitingly endowed woman. He sensed that the excitement was triggered by the fact that-for his first time during the years he'd run the club-the possibility of an affair was bubbling like strong wine in his veins. He could not uproot it from his mind and, even more surprising to him, was the fact that there was no guilt, no regret in the background. He felt an odd sort of relief and wondered if it might be numbness from the dimension of his emotional shock.
While all this was tumbling in the squirrel-cage John's mind had become, Terry occupied the time with extracting a cigarette from her bag and John politely leaned across to ignite it with his desk lighter. This required he draw his eyes away from the engaging sight of Terry's well-constructed legs. She had tiny feet, so small they almost made her slim ankles look heavy. But the generous length of her curvaceous calves and the thrust of the full, feminine thighs made John's hands tremble as he put down the lighter. The sheen of taut nylons-the tiny crescent of bare flesh which winked briefly as she crossed the delightful thighs--her voice caught his eyes and drew them up to hers.
"I want a job singing, Mr. Carrol. I'm good and I can prove it to you. If there are any requirements, I'm more than willing to talk about them-and to fulfill them without bickering." The statement was made almost flatly and John felt a leap of admiration for the business-like manner in which she spoke. The innocence of the big, blue eyes never wavered on his, the tiny, husky timbre in her low, sexy voice again started the sympathetic vibrations deep in his nervous system.
He shifted, uncomfortably, struggling to keep his eyes from straying to the fullness of her dark green frock-the bodice which fought back the attempts of the breasts to escape captivity. The hem of her brief skirt was also a temptation to his gaze-with the lush expanse of tender curves above and below the smoothly rounded knees. In John's imagination, women's legs-attractive ones-always exuded their own personality. Terry's unlike her eyes and mouth in their innocence, looked urgent, wanton, hungry and imperious.
When John replied to her request for a job, he was surprised at the automatic expression of desire which came from him, almost as though his sub-conscious had spoken.
"What if I offer you a singing spot-but with certain strings attached?" he asked, actually startled at his words. Then he recognized it was a tentative move-experimental-he was anxious to find how far he could go, and how fast. At this point, John was like a small boy with a new toy. There was no resolve to take Terry up on any arrangement; he reassured himself that just knowing it was possible was enough.
Terry smiled, her eyes glancing to the brown leather sofa under the built-in book-cases. "If you mean what I think you mean...."
She left it in the air and John, grinning with a release of some secret tension, allowed it to remain there.
"Tell you what," he said, "come in tonight and get with Jerry, our pianist. If he okays you, we'll audition you, live, tonight. OK?"
Terry shrugged and smiled. "That's fine with me."
John stood up then, to move around the desk and help the girl to her feet. In the moment his hand was under her forearm in a gentlemanly gesture, he felt an uncontrollable urge to kiss her. It was totally impulse; she was close to him; the conversation had been suggestive and leaving little if any doubt as to what she offered. He pulled the girl toward him, into his arms, his pulses leaping at the willingness with which she pressed against him and the heated pressure of her bosom. Her arms went around his neck and the full, innocent lips came up to his, open.
The kiss was long, deep and lingering, involving lips, tongues and bodies, intensely. John's head was spinning, his excitement leaping inside him at the ease with which it had been accomplished.
Just as they released each other, the door opened and John's eyes leaped toward the motion as he froze, inside.
Alice, his wife, stood there with shock plain on her features. The expression was so clearly one of wifely hurt that John felt nausea swell like a sponge in his stomach. Then she turned, swiftly, and vanished, the door slamming behind her.
For an instant, John couldn't move and then he sprang to the door, flinging it open to charge through Norma's office, just outside; leaping across the small stage and through the crowded tables and chairs of the club, he pursued the fleeing figure of his wife. His feeling was one of panic, mixed with bitterness, that his one act of infidelity-and a totally experimental one-should have been witnessed by Alice. Now she would never believe him.
He caught her in the parking lot, reaching for her desperately as she attempted to open the car door. Alice was crying, uncontrollably, tears streaming down her cheeks, her lips trembling. Hate blazed in her eyes as she glared at him.
"Let me alone!" she yelled, almost in hysterics. "Alice-Alice, for God's sake, listen to me-I...." She slapped him with all her strength. "Don't ever touch me again. I-I came to ask for-forgiveness. I was willing to beg-I believed you when you said you'd never touched another woman-and I find you in one's arms." She straightened in angry resolve. "It's been a mistake from the beginning," she gasped. "You can go to hell!" She turned her back on him and got into the car.
John, numbed with shock, was speechless. There wasn't anything he could say, he knew-at least, nothing Alice would ever believe.
He stood, rooted, watching her car swerve angrily out of the parking lot to disappear around the curve of the building. Then, the starch went out of his figure and he slumped, exhausted, against the fender of the car beside him. He felt like he'd been running for hours, that all the strength, energy and will had suddenly drained from him. Suddenly, he was conscious of a keen sense of loss and the hard want for his life not to dissolve under him-not to throw five years of marriage away like a crumpled paper bag.
He began to walk, slowly, unaware of what he was doing-of time passing-of his surroundings. His mind, like a tread-mill kept rerunning the facts of the revolting situation, coming to the same conclusion each time. It was over ... and through no real fault of his.
Alice struggled to get a grip on her emotions as she drove swiftly away from the club. She accepted the fact that it was finished, but she wasn't so foolish as to think she didn't care. She knew she cared far too much. She knew, from lifelong experience, that now-in this brief time-she could accept it without pain. But when the anaesthetic of shock wore away, she would end nakedly sick, emotionally and physically bereft and agonized. It was instinctive for her to head for Carl Denver's office-but it was logical, too. She had a tremendous desire not to be alone. She couldn't stand it-she wouldn't-and Carl would be more than pleased to see her.
But, at the last moment, she chickened out and instead of going to Carl's office, stopped in a cocktail lounge, a short distance away, where they had met many times before. Once inside the dim, intimate room, she went to the pay phone and dialed Carl's office.
"Alice!" he exploded into the phone, pleased. "Where are you?"
"I'm at-at Charlie's. Carl ... I have to see you."
"But-I thought....
"Please, Carl. Things have changed. I don't care what we decided. Things have changed and I have to see you." Alice realized that the hysterical note was plain in her voice but she needed the comforting presence of this man; she needed escape: mental, emotional, physical reassurance and Carl could supply it-if nothing else.
"Sure, baby, sure," Carl's soothing reply, in a deep masculine voice sent new strength through her trembling limbs. "I'll get done and be there in about thirty minutes. I'll just take the afternoon off-it's dead as Kelsey today."
"Oh Carl-thank you! I do need you, desperately!" She didn't care if he heard the pleading. All she could think of, now, was the feel of his hands making love to her breasts; the demand of his lips on hers, making her catch fire with hunger for him, the raw desire that drove her to uncontrollable heights of erotic action.
"Now, hang loose, baby. I'll be there before you know it. Order yourself a drink, sit down and let yourself relax. You're all wound up, and nothing's that important...." As she slipped into a booth, she recalled the confident, unruffled assurance of his voice. Had she not known exactly where she stood with Carl, it would have contributed to her turmoil. But Carl-she thought to herself-Carl likes to lay me-he likes any woman who is violently responsive to his skilled love-making-and that's all he likes. She knew he was happy to have her on the string ... it flattered him. To her, none of this was important because she got her reward-sexually.
With the double Martini before her, she realized that she needed the drink at that moment even more than she needed Carl. She attacked it eagerly. By the time Carl arrived, Alice was on her way to the state she liked best-she was for kicks and nothing else mattered. Husband, marriage ... nothing but the delights of those repeated flights to the moon that made her emotions flutter like a flag in a gale....
It was dark, but John Carrol was still dazed and numb. Sitting in a cocktail bar, he was contemplating his second after-dinner Martini and trying desperately to force his mind away from the treadmill on which it continued to run. The more he thought, the more John realized that he badly needed someone to talk to. The decision was difficult to reach, in his mental condition, but had come when he finished the dinner he'd ordered and eaten like an automaton. Downing the drink, he went outside to a cab stand and gave the lead driver the address of Norma Blake's apartment.
It was the shortest ten minutes John could remember, the ride to Norma's place. He felt as if his nerves were worn through. He had walked for hours and it wasn't until he became conscious of darkness descending on the city and the hunger pangs in his midriff that he realized how long he had been afoot. Paying the cabbie, John turned and looked up at the apartment building, then at his watch.
It was a reflex because he knew Norma would be home by dark. She left the club office around four or five, depending on the work load and when he wasn't in the office, afternoons, she generally went home about four. He tried to think, standing there, what he would do and say but his mind continued in turmoil from fatigue and alcohol.
"The hell with it!" he grated, half-aloud and started for the entrance. He had never visited Norma's place before, alone. Both he and Alice had been there twice for parties. But, despite the warm and close personal relationship between them which existed in the club's office, whenever the need to talk something out with her had arisen, it had occurred at the office. With the knowledge that Norma loved him and was not averse to an affair, neither of them had either made a pass at the other nor offered any suggestion toward greater intimacy.
Her apartment was 17 and, at his ring, it was several seconds before he heard footsteps moving toward the door. When it opened, Norma's face immediately hard-muscled, and presented exceptional proportions. His eyes, deep-set, gave a brooding yet sensitive flavor to his facial expressions. When he lifted his eyes from pouring the wine, Alice suddenly felt naked as the excitement flooded over her once more.
"Well, Alice," he said, giving her one of the half-filled glasses, "let's drink to a wonderful evening of sharing."
Touching lightly, they lifted their glasses and Alice proceeded to take a heavy swallow from hers.
"Hey-not so fast!" he smiled at her.
"I just feel like getting drunk!" she proclaimed.
"I don't want you to be drunk," he explained, moving close to kiss her cheek. His arm around her waist pulled her close to him. His eyes held hers, looking down with soft fires burning in their depths. "You're a wonderful woman, Alice, believe me, I know. I've had many women but none more lovely, more wonderful to hold, to make love to than you. Every time I look at you, the reaction hits me-hard!"
Alice laughed. "That was cleverly put."
"I mean-violently. You do hit a man where he feels it most!" He drew her closer and she could detect the measure of his desire.
"You are reacting!" she exclaimed, both pleased and amused. She needed the reassurance of this man-telling her how she made him feel and then proving it to her. It was necessary to her that she feel sexually arousing and desirable.
"I'm reacting like any man would react to a woman as beautiful as you are," he said, kissing her lightly on the lips and releasing her. "Now, for a little lighting...."
Going to the television set, he turned it onto a blank channel and adjusted the brightness until it created the fantasy of flickering moonlight; moving then to in to mix the drinks.
Alice felt thrilling excitement sweep over her as the motel room door closed behind Carl Denver and her.
The room was beautiful and she knew the tariff was expensive. It was the sort of place Carl would select-romantically, he wanted perfection. A huge double bed, contemporary furniture and a large-screen television to provide the perfect night-light ... the flickering, artificial moonlight to mysteriously highlight their naked bodies as they made love.
Carl moved to center stage, immediately, removing any suggestion of cheapness or furtiveness by now allowing Alice a moment in which to feel awkward or ill-at-ease. The bottle of chilled champagne in his hands was a tool with which he started creating the atmosphere for what would follow.
Alice was tight already. This much she knew. The conversation during the afternoon had ventilated the frustrations in her married life as she told Carl much about John and herself. She realized, in an instant of clear insight, she'd told him much more than had been really necessary. But Carl was a good listener, having found it was well worth his while.
Alice watched him as he opened the bottle and poured the bubbling wine into the tumblers from the dresser-desk. He was a good-looking bull of a man of large proportions, his huge hands handling the champagne bottle as though it were a medicine bottle. His features, while not rugged, were totally masculine-he wasn't the 'pretty boy' type-and the sandy, close-cropped hair was becoming. She guessed his height as better than six-feet, three and she knew, from previous experience, that his naked body was symmetrical, reflected surprise. She stood, a robe pulled tight about her lissome figure and a glance John could not restrain revealed the press of her nipples against the nylon.
"Come in," was all she said, closing the door behind him. "I was just getting out of the shower. Let me get something on...."
John shrugged for want of immediate words to tell her she need go to no trouble on his account-but the thrust of her nipples against the robe had stirred an erotic response in him.
"Where've you been?" she asked, then, concern in her eyes.
"Walking," was his laconic reply. "Got a drink around?" She nodded toward the dining area adjacent to the kitchen.
"Sure. Fix one for me, too."
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
Norma grinned, brushing back the lock of hair from her forehead in a characteristic gesture. In the depths of her dark eyes, John could see the warm affection. It was like her to say nothing directly; to leave the path of the conversation to him.
"I had nothing planned except television, maybe a cocktail and then to bed. No date." She turned away to her bedroom, urging him to make the drinks strong ones. John nodded, his eyes automatically falling to the slight motion of her firm buttocks beneath the clinging robe. They engendered a fascinating twitch to the length of the nylon draped about her, but there was no exaggerated movement. Norma was not obvious and John, watching her disappear, admitted to himself, again, that Norma was a good-looking woman, including the blessing of a beautiful body. He felt a small, warming reaction at the thought it would not be difficult to persuade Norma to let him make love to her. Then he was fighting back the thought as he went touch the switch beside the door cutting off the room lamps. Alice had the impression of being in total darkness at first and she stood where she was, knowing he would find her.
Then she felt his arm going around her and his hand, from behind her, found the lift of her breasts and he fondled them softly as small cascades of pleasure went through her. Then she felt his body press against hers as his lips found the curve where the soft column of her throat met the generous display of her shoulders. His lips and tongue setting little, tiny fires as they touched her.
"Oh, Alice...!" she felt the warmth of his breath in her ear as he whispered his excitement. The muscles of her body stretched and tightened, involuntarily, as the chase of excitation along her nerves speeded up. She felt he was tightening her, like a fiddle string, as she turned to press herself against him, close. The need for his kisses and continued caresses was like a voracious appetite, driving her....
The affair between Alice and Carl had been the product of her own tremendous excitement at the sight of him, some months before, when they had met by accident in a drug store. When her unbelieving eyes found him, the unexpectedness of it had stunned Alice for the moment. But then, she felt her body expand and grow hot with the memories of what she had shared with the huge man before she married John Carrol...." Alice, how wonderful to see you again!" he had exclaimed and she knew, delightedly, he must be feeling the same exulting delight inside which she was experiencing. She had no feeling that six years had separated this moment from their last meeting. Carl had hardly changed. To her, he was fantastically handsome-tremendously exciting, just to look at.
"Carl! What are you doing here?" she had gasped, in her surprise.
"Well-any reason why I shouldn't be here?" he laughed and she joined her merriment with his, laughing at her own words. As he moved close to her to take her outstretched hand, once again she was feeling young, free and excitingly happy. Their affair had been a torrid, violent relationship which, ordinarly-because of their enjoyment of each other-might have led to marriage. Only Carl was not the marrying sort.
"I hear you're married, now," he said.
She nodded. "That's right."
"Happy?" he asked, studying her face closely for her reaction.
"Who's really happy?" she smiled, shrugging. "Life isn't ever that simple, is it, Carl?" Her question had a note of pleading in it, expressing the hope that he would agree with her.
"I'm happy." His smile didn't alter.
"Really happy, Carl?" she persisted.
"Why shouldn't I be? I live as I want. No strings. Making money at what I like to do best ... none of the problems of the so-called lonely bachelor. You know, Alice, some guys are meant for marriage-they can't face the jungle of single blessedness." He chuckled. "Now me-I couldn't survive being married."
Alice could believe him. Certainly believe he would not suffer loneliness. Carl was the type of man who could make some women feel hot all over with a look and a few words. He had the ability to make a woman feel exalted, desirable, great ... as though she could be happier than anyone had a right to be. He had the magic touch and, with him, it was a merry-go-round-fantastic, perhaps, but to him, it was a ball.
Her thoughts leaped backward, remembering in a hot surge of recollection what it was like with Carl. Then his voice shattered the pictures.
"Have you anything planned this afternoon?"
She lifted her eyes to his, feeling the hot flesh creep into her face. He could hardly have read her mind, yet the statement offered and promised just what her mind had been sorting....
"There's so much we have to talk about," he went on, his voice touched with the correct amount of bland innocence to make her believe that talk was all he wanted. Perhaps it was true.
"I do have things I should get done," she said, quickly-on the defensive and awkwardly seeking a means to escape a situation which, she knew so well, would quickly become something over which she had no control.
"What, for instance?" Carl persisted, teasingly. "Look-we haven't seen each other for ages. I want to know what's happened to you."
Alice felt herself swinging in the opposite direction, melting inside, hungering for an afternoon with Carl. Here was a man she'd known before her marriage; who liked her for what she was ... With John, it was different. Always, she had the feeling that he was cheating on her. It hurt, because there was nothing she could do or say about it. The gambit of the non-existent pregnancy she had used to force him into marriage which might not, otherwise, have occurred, hung over her head. But, she had felt, all's fair in love and war and Alice was desperate for marriage, a family and security. When the revelation that she could not have children hit her, it was a thunderous blow. Subconsciously, she had the feeling she deserved it.
She realized her marriage to John had been accomplished on the rebound from Carl. Yet, she loved John as much as it was possible for her to love a man.
"Yes, Carl ... why not?" she heard herself say; and they had gone to a cocktail lounge for several drinks as she brought him up to date on her marriage and her life but not couching on anything in the area of intimacy.
At his suggestion they go to his apartment for more drinks and talk, Alice went along with what she knew, by then, was strictly a gag. It was a couple of days later she knew why she had gone with him. She'd fooled herself into thinking nothing would happen-but it was only a mental device to allow her to do what she had suddenly experienced a driving desire for. She'd played with fire, as the old saw had it, and she'd burned herself to a turn. With Carl, you didn't suggest a friendly kiss or holding hands. His attitude was that a woman was a body-and a body was for loving. The way Carl did it, was beautiful. Each time she returned to earth after the skyrocket ride to the zenith, she always remembered the fairy-tale quality of Carl's love-making. Alice admitted to herself it was impossible for her to resist him. When Carl reached for her, she fell into his hands like a ripe plum....
Flashing through Alice's mind, under the magic of Carl's hand on her breasts and the pressure of his body against hers, the thoughts vanished as his lips came down on hers. Instantly her fires within had leaped and she concentrated every fibre of her being on getting his huge body onto the bed with her. Purposely, he let the moments pass as desire built and beat inside her and, just as she thought she must beg him, he began to move her toward the bed. Suddenly, the muscles in her legs seemed to go limp.
"Oh, Carl!" she gasped, writhing as she felt his hands removing her clothing. How she wanted to be naked under his hot hands! She writhed in delight and desire as Carl made the most of baring her body, hands gently pulling, caressing, working her garments off, one by one. His fingers brushed her thighs, her bra-imprisoned breasts, her bare back as he found the catch of her bra and then the naked tips of her bosoms; hands which never ceased exciting her as he laid her, naked and shuddering with pleasure, back on the bed. It was then that he began kissing her intensely, his tongue exciting her to a peak of erotic need that pounded for satisfaction.
"Carl! Please, Carl...!" It seemed an eternity before he joined her, the heat of his naked body moving next to her on the bed. Writhing, panting, she found herself speechless as his hands and lips moved to more intimate caresses. Her body was swollen to bursting with need; her nerves tingling and itching with it. Her breasts were tight, hot knots which seemed to press against her lungs and cut off her breathing. She struggled and gasped for air, and found the words to voice and cry her need, to plead with him for release....
When it came, the explosion of pleasure was such an exquisite agony that she screamed, going momentarily berserk with the keen joy which raged through every particle of her, shaking her and flinging her in swooping, breath-taking arcs, suffocating her with unbearably sharp sensation.
Afterward, the need swelled and goaded her again....
"Carl-I don't know what's the matter with me-more-love me more-make me wild again! I need it Carl, more than ever before-Carl, kiss me...!" Never had she felt such compulsion, as though the only way she could hold on to sanity was in the ultimate ecstasy of continued release-on and on until she exhausted the fire and the hunger and floated in complete, black nothinginess.
She felt as though a dam had burst, inside her and he was the only way she could stop the outgoing rush of her very being.
"You're wonderful, Alice," she heard his voice laughing softly against her ear. Of all the women I've known, you've always been the very best."
"I can't believe it, Carl," she gasped, twisting, head rolling in the forest of her wanton hair, "but I don't care-I don't! I don't want anything but your huge body over mine...." He laughed again, his hands cupping, caressing her breasts; his kisses starting the tingles leaping along her nerves.
"What's happening to me?" Alice asked herself, silently, for a frantic moment, straining hard against Carl to feel each inch of him she could touch as she arched against him with a fierce strength from outside herself. As his lips recaptured her breasts, Alice asked no further questions but gave herself up, completely, to the overpowering sensations again racking her consciousness.
"Oh Carl!" she gasped, "Carl-Carl-Carl-oh, that's wonderful-oh, yes-oh, Carl, that's driving me-oh, it's driving me mad!" Her voice broke and she sobbed: "Carl-I can't-I can't stand-Carl!"
As he began to move, she knew, frantically, wildly, insanely, what was coming and struggled, mindlessly, arms and legs clutching, beating, threshing at what she knew not....