Chapter 3
Norma returned to the living room, attractively clad in skin-tight capris with a clinging, knit top. Her black hair fell to her shoulders and she was surrounded by an enticing cloud of cologne which added to John's excitement. She dropped, gracefully, to the sofa beside him, but not close, to pick up the drink he had set on the coffee table for her.
"Well, John, I'm surprised to see you. It must be a weighty problem to bring you here at this time of day. What may I do for you?"
For an instant, John teetered on the point of suggesting they retire to her bedroom for a little loving tenderness but, applying his drink to his lips to prevent a recurrence of the automatic speech to Tony earlier in the day, he crowded down the sensuality.
"I don't know, really, where to begin," he said, "but...."
"Let me help," Norma put in. "It's something with you and Alice."
"You can say that, again," he agreed.
"OK then," she complied, smiling, " 'that again'!"
"Funny girl," John smiled at her. "Anyway, it's washed up unless I can find an explanation...." He turned to Norma, concerned. " ... well, Alice thinks I've been shacking up with girls in the show."
Norma sat motionless for a moment, stunned. Then she exclaimed: "You've got to be kidding!"
John shook his head. "I'm serious."
"Well, Alice must have rocks in her head!" she protested, leaning forward. "That is ... unless you've been doing something I don't know about. I've never known a more loyal husband. Many's the time ... but that's not important," she broke off the thought. "You have a reputation for being the least out of line operator with talent for miles around!"
John shrugged. "But how do I convince my wife?"
"Don't try," Norma advised.
He shook his head. "You don't understand the situation."
"Well, John, why don't you fill me in on what I don't know ... and maybe I can size it up a little more helpfully." She patted his arm. "I don't like to get involved in anyone else's domestic problems, but, John-you are something else again." She grinned. "I'd do anything for you ... even to talking over your domestic troubles with you." John's mind attempted to isolate the intimate promise her eyes and voice made but gave up trying to find it in her words. His mind, by now, was dulled and sluggish from the emotions and the liquor which the day had forced on him.
Finally he sorted out the next thing he wanted to say.
"I don't know about her and Carl Denver!" he blurted. "I guess everybody does...."
Norma nodded slowly. "I heard something...."
"It was over-so she said. We'd had a fight this morning when I asked her about it. Then, she came into the office just at the wrong time this morning. That-girl singer-well, something happened and...."
"I guessed." There was amusement, tinged with regret in Norma's statement.
John went on to explain in detail what had happened, from the time he talked to Alice to the moment she drove off. Everything he could remember, he told her, finished the recitation in exhaustion, saying: " ... and so, here I am, crying on your shoulder!"
He tossed off the remainder of his drink, turning his head to Norma to ask: "So, what now?"
A long silence fell between them. Finally Norma, her voice soft and slightly husky, made a hesitant reply.
"John-I can't think of anything that would-really-help. You know-a woman believes-only what she wants to. That's the-the difficult part."
Sudden anger at the futility of it all boiled in John and he barked: "Damn it all! Why the hell can't a woman trust a man?"
Norma moved closer, putting her hand on his arm, gently. "It's not all that simple, John, and you know it. Some women just can't believe even in themselves so, naturally, they won't trust anyone else. Yet, there are probably just as many who go too far in the other direction for their own good-and believe too strongly in a man. That can be just as painful, and all you can do is wait that out and hope for the best."
"Five years shot to hell," John groaned, dropping his face into his hands. After a moment he lifted his head. "It's too late. Too much has happened to put it back together." Suddenly his arms went around Norma, pulling her close before she could move to resist. His lips found her soft, moist ones as excitement and tenderness raced through him. He was pulling her even closer when her arms stiffened against him and pushed him gently but definitely away. John didn't hesitate to release her. Both were silent until Norma sighed:
"No, John. It just isn't right."
"Yes." He knew she was right.
"It's not me you want. In this moment, you desperately want to escape. I don't want it that way, John, and you, of all people, should know that!" She stood, moving to a chair opposite him.
"Norma, I'm sorry," he finally said, feeling foolish and suspecting he looked shamefaced as well. But there was nothing he could do to abate the pounding in his temples which the touch of her lips had caused. It had been an electric contact-and something more.
"Don't be sorry, John," Norma smiled. Her face was flushed and her eyes didn't meet his. She sat nervously, her hands toying with each other. "It's just that-this isn't the right moment. If-if things were different, John-I don't know-probably it would be best if you got back to the club...."
John rose, quickly, knowing she was right. For him, things had gotten out of hand. Why, he wasn't sure, indicating the depth of his upset. But he recognized Norma was right-he should leave.
As he went out, Norma stopped at the door to say:
"Some-some other time, maybe, John." She touched his shoulder and he felt the electricity go through him once more. Again the temptation to take her in his arms returned but he smiled and thanked her quietly, moving down the corridor.
Walking along the street toward a cab stand, John tried to pull his thoughts from Norma and from the problem which had brought him to her apartment. He also tried to veer away, mentally, from the sudden desire which her lips had fired in him. The father he walked, the more convinced he became that the only thing he really needed was a woman ... and there was quite a selection at the club. A woman, a bottle of booze ... these spelled escape from the dilemma which, by now, had him throughly sick and tired of its unchanging facets. He'd take any route to escape facing the mess his life had become.
Norma Blake stood looking at the closed door for some time after John vanished through it. Her nerves were painfully evident to her and tears were welling down her cheeks. She fought the dry lump in her throat, finally returning to the sofa, sitting with hands in her lap.
The hard hunger of her love for John-and the painful necessity to deny him what he wanted-made her writhe inside. It had been a long time since she'd felt this way about a man. And she'd loved John Carrol for more than a year. The old secretary-falls-for-the-boss story-yet something more, because John Carrol was a gentle, sensitive man-and a loyal one. Far more so than her husband, Larry, had been. The three years of their marriage had been violent and passionate-but unsatisfactory. She had loved Larry to the day he died and he, in his own way, had loved her. Larry's idea of love had been providing for his wife, taking her out twice a week and making love to her three times a week. But, he had his outside girls and she found this out.
Norma never made a play for John Carrol because she despised the entire idea of such behavior and had, long before her husband's own betrayal the more deeply confirmed her aversion. She recognized her own attraction to John and recalled how easy it would have been for her to succumb to that attraction, just a few moments before. One quick kiss almost led her straight to the bedroom. But she knew that it wasn't desire for her that motivated his pass at her-it was a desire for escape-and any woman who aroused him would have been acceptable to him in that moment.
However, Norma recognized, that wasn't the way she wanted John Carrol. She wanted him, but only when he came to her with a desire for herself-a desire which stemmed from her own person and identity. Much as she felt the deep affection for John, she would not be a casual score-a therapeutic lay, so to speak-for him. Norma Blake just wasn't that type of female.
John Carrol had come to rest at the long bar which ran the length of one side of the Jay-Cee Club. A mirror backed the bar, fronted by shelves of glasses. Through and around these, it was possible to follow the action in the room or on the stage without turning from the bar itself. John was slightly smashed and was confronted by a double martini which he knew wasn't going to help abate his tipsy condition. His eyes were casually following the work of the stripper then on stage; a slim dancer who went by the name of Vera and who had the ability to distract the customers' attention from her lack of fleshly endowment. She was a fill-in who worked between shows and was gifted with enough savvy to keep the spectators happy between presentations.
John had asked the bartender about Terry Anson, since he'd missed her act and she wouldn't be on again for another hour. Ben, the barman, gave, with circled thumb and forefinger, his critique of Terry's performance, adding a wink and the spoken information that Jerry, the pianist, had really flipped over her. There was the suggestion, in Ben's words, which didn't please John-that Jerry might be making passes, excited by Terry's enticing body-but he shrugged it away. It didn't matter ... just so long as she was available when John wanted his own kicks....
He'd sat for some time, trying to come to terms with the strange idea of getting into the action on-the-side. His marriage, now that he was viewing it in the black-light of the bar corner and alcoholic diffusion, had been a strange one, right from the start. It started with a lie but, John thought, they had managed to find a happy relationship-as for love, he questioned the category. What kind of love could survive with one partner being constantly jealous? John could recall Alice's flying into a rage over nothing more than his talking with another woman-being at the club later than usual or later than she believed necessary. His glance at a woman on the street would send Alice into moodiness. His good-humored protest, that looks meant nothing, brought from Alice the retort that a man only looked at a woman when he was speculating on what she was like in bed. John had looked at her in wonder when she made that statement; wonder because the involved reasoning of a female would think it was all that simple....
Then the music of the small combo mushroomed into the club and on stage, Vera rotated her hips swiftly to end with a bump following the progress of some imaginary object off into orbit, which delighted many customers, well on their way to orbit, themselves. Applause rose as, with eyes shaded by one hand, Vera indicated watching the crash. Cheers and laughter rose with the applause as she switched from sex to comedy and did an exaggerated tip-toe off stage, humiliated.
John grinned as he finished his Martini and left the bar for the stage, moving to the curtained entrance to the backstage area. Vera had just come off from a quick second bow.
"Business sounds good tonight, boss," she smiled at him.
"You're doing a fine job, honey," he grinned at her. "Where'd you come by the comedy ending?" She smiled up at him, shrugging.
"Just something that came to mind when the combo started. The timing was just right for the music curtain."
"Funny girl," he chuckled. "I like it." Vera stepped close to give him a quick hug and was gone. He moved toward his office, passing Frankie Robbins who was dressed in a scarlet, flaming gown which hugged her figure like another skin. The great breasts danced in their effort to leap the low-cut bodice.
"See my act?" she asked, with a warm smile, the green eyes gleaming brightly.
"Missed the first show," he confessed. "I haven't seen you-out there." He nodded, grinning, toward the stage. "I'll catch you this show. Seen Terry Anson?"
"Who?" she asked, brow knitting.
"The singer," John explained.
"Oh-haven't seen her since she was on. Pretty good, she was." Frankie stepped closer to him. "Buy a girl a drink, later?"
John grinned. "Been a rough night," he said. "I'll take a raincheck, though." She patted his cheek and a tingling sensation went through John as he watched her walk away, then turned to go on to his office.
Once inside, he went to a small liquor cabinet and picked up a bottle of scotch. Then, going to his desk, he pushed the lever on his desk intercom.
"Fred," he said, "have you seen the new singer, Terry Anson?"
The gruff voice of the stage manager replied:
"Think she's in the girls' dressing room, John."
"Thanks," the owner replied, putting down the bottle and leaving the office to return backstage, stopping before the door with the legend: "Ladies' Dressing Room." John knocked, firmly.
"Everybody decent?" he called, using the traditional stage expression to request male entry into female dressing quarters.
"Come on in, boss," a girl's voice answered and John entered to face the smiles of Vera and Terry Anson, seated before makeup mirrors, having a cigarette.
"Hi, kids," Johnny greeted them. "How'd you do?" he asked Terry, smiling.
"Vera said they liked me," she smiled, blue, innocent eyes on his.
"Ben, the barman confirmed the report. Good. Terry, have you a few minutes for talk?"
"All the time in the world, Mr. Carrol," she said, rising and coming toward him.
"Better call me Johnny," he corrected, his smile including both girls. "People say 'Mr. Carrol' to me, I look over my shoulder to see if my father's standing behind me."
"There ain't a straight man alive," Vera giggled at him as John shrugged in apology for his attempt at humor.
As Terry, walking ahead of him, started toward the office, John felt nervous and awkward. It was the first time in his experience he'd ever made a pass at an employee and the thought kept him edgy and off-balance. He twisted, inside his clothing, in distaste at the feeling....
"Theresa!" her mother's bawling voice floated across the tracks to where the child was playing under the freight-house dock.
"Ooh, geez, my mom will kill me!" she exclaimed, looking down at her soiled shorts and shirt.
"Maybe she won't be mad, Terry," her little negro friend, Mary Banks comforted, "le's brush you off good befo' you go...."
"Thanks, Mary, but brushin' won't help," Terry said, in apprehension, "If mom's mad...."
"Theresa!" the call came again and the two children looked at each other as they instinctively assessed the caller's temper in surprise.
"Like she sho don' soun' mad," little Mary contributed, her small, deep-brown forehead wrinkling in questioning speculation. Terry's eyes were puzzled as she confirmed her friend's analysis.
"She doesn't," the small redhead agreed, wonderingly. "Well, 'bye Mary-see you tomorrow?" Mary nodded happily as Terry trotted across the tracks, her co-ordination controlled to a precocious degree. When she reached the bank on the far side of the freight yard, she turned to wave a final goodbye to Mary and turned back toward her home to call:
"I'm coming, Mother!" Then she trotted down the steep bank to the section of small, shabby houses which adjoined the freight yards. As she entered the back door, her mother looked up from the highball she was mixing to her small daughter's grimy form.
"Terry, honestly, you can accumulate more dirt on a small body than any kid I ever saw!" Terry looked wonderingly at her mother. Usually such comments were in an aggrieved tone of voice. Then the little girl remembered. Her mother was having a drink. They must be having company. On the rare occasions when the Mullens family's budget allowed such a luxury, it was always a special occasion. Mom always softened her harassed approach to her two youngsters and Terry, accustomed to the norm, smiled at the prospect of a treat ... her mother's good humor.
Grace Mullens was the widow of Terrence Mullens who had lost his life in a trucking accident. Little Terry didn't remember her Daddy, too much. She'd been just a little past two years old when her father had been killed. Terry's mother had gone to work in the office of Trans' Western Express, the truck company which had employed her husband. With her earnings (and the mortgage on the small house paid off by an insurance policy) Grace managed to get along.
However, it wasn't the type of existence she wanted for herself, nor was their home a satisfactory abode for rearing two daughters, Grace felt. In the beginning, the houses had been new, neat and attractive. But a drop in railroad activity had seen many of the solid residents leave the section with a resultant deterioration in the well-kept condition of the small homes there. Now, Terry's mother looked at the overall shabbiness with a fearful eye. Sometimes, the feeling of desperation almost made her ill as she walked from the bus stop along the littered sidewalk. Of course, kids were responsible for most of the untidiness, but Grace remembered the neat laws and carefully tended shrubbery with a deep regret....
"Can I have a taste, Mother!" Terry asked, her eyes on the glass. Grace's eyes crinkled slightly at the corners as she looked down into the guileless blue eyes of her eight-year-old.
"Theresa Mullens, you know very well this is bourbon whiskey and you don't like the taste of it." The mother suppressed her smile at the persistence of the small, redheaded replica of her dead husband. It never failed ... Terry wanted to try everything and Grace, wisely, did not hide things behind the veil of prohibition. There was nothing which Terry and Kathy, her older sister, could not talk about or sample at home.
"Please?" Terry asked. "I might like it, now." Her grin was impish. While her mother's discipline was strict with both her daughters, there was also a warmth and closeness among the trio which, when Grace's constant feeling of harassment allowed, emerged to shed its delight upon the participants.
"Alright, little wart!" Grace exclaimed, handing Terry the drink. The child took the glass and tilted it to her lips, sipping gingerly. Then with a grimace of distaste, she handed it back to her mother.
"Bluaacch!" she exclaimed, a sound popular with Terry's contemporaries which described the complete range of distaste.
"I thought not," Grace smiled. "I won't have to worry about that for awhile, yet."
"Worry about what, Mother?" Terry asked, eyes inquisitive.
"About your developing a taste for this," Grace said, lifting the glass.
"Yucchh!" Terry responded. "It just ruins the taste of good B-l."
"You," her mother said, "are to bathe and get into your blue jumper. Uncle Bib is coming to take us to dinner."
"Oh boy!" Terry shouted, leaping in excitement, then reconsidering, "but couldn't I wear my green...."
"You spilled chocolate syrup on your green," her mother reminded her, eyes pinching a bit when she remembered the amount of cleaning she'd have to pay for. Theresa, angel, I wish you'd be more careful. When you want to wear something, especially, it's always soiled." Terry nodded, downcast. "So hop to it, now. Kathy should be out of the bathroom...."
John Bibby, Terence Mullens' apprentice helper, enjoyed the courtesy title of "Uncle Bib" among the Mullens girls. He'd been working with big Terry just 18 months when the driver was killed. Bib was lucky, escaping with a broken leg and shoulder when thrown free of the cab, but nothing could have gotten big Terry out of the fire which erupted almost at the same instant the cab crashed. A piece of rusty angle-iron, possibly thrown onto the paving by kids, had gutted the right front tire on Terry's tractor as he wheeled around the long bend at the base of the descent. The lurch, as the tire blew, threw the wheel into the culvert abutment ... and all hell broke loose, according to the account given by a driver whose car was behind Terry's big rig by about a half mile.
Bib was nearing nineteen when the accident occurred. The Mullens family had been his friends and he spent much time at their house, talking for hours with big Terry about trucking. Himself an orphan, Bib was grateful for the never-failing interest Mullens gave him. Big Terry had found him hiding on the terminal dock one day, frightened and hungry and without a job, drawn by an explicable love for the Diesel monsters which moved the goods ... a love which Terry knew, tacitly, but which was demonstrable only by actions, never by words.
Ascertaining Bib's story and impressed by the lad's tremendous affection for the wheel, Terry talked with his fellow drivers and interested them in apprenticing Bib. They were instrumental in getting the union to accept a down payment on his fee and to allow Bib to liquidate it by installments. It was like a personal invitation to heaven to young John Bibby and he never forgot it. When Terry died, Bib almost went out of his mind with grief. His affection for Grace and her daughters was a continuing emotion and, at least once a month, he took the family to dinner. While Grace would not accept Bib's offers of financial help, she couldn't refuse the endowment policies he bought for the two children. With luck, Grace knew, they'd provide training for her girls, something Grace herself lacked ... the tools to earn a better livelihood....
The quiet sound of a car stopping before the house drew Grace from her reverie as she leaned against the kitchen built-in work top, savoring her drink. She moved into the living room, brushing at her dress, as Bib got out of his car and came up the walk.
"Hi, Grace," he greeted her with his contained smile as she opened the screen for him and offered her cheek for his kiss. "I hope you're hungry. I could eat a fan-belt without dressing."
"You always could, Bib," Grace laughed. "Come out to the kitchen and I'll make you a drink...."
"You were kind enough not to mention I'm always thirsty, too," he grinned, following her to the back. Grace was a fine figure of a woman and Bib, who never suffered for feminine companionship, allowed his eyes to rest themselves affectionately on the magnetic dimensions of the widow Mullens. His feeling for Grace was far from platonic and it would have needed only the nod of her taffy-brown head to make him follow, eagerly, to the bedroom. After big Terry's death, the younger man's thoughts had increasingly explored his feeling for Grace but he knew the disparity in their ages would not permit a permanent arrangement and he, further, knew that Grace's character wouldn't allow a continuing 'temporary' liaison. Bib valued his relationship with the family too dearly to jeopardize it.
"Hi, Uncle Bib," Kathy's clear treble greeted him, as the thirteen-year old moved into the kitchen, to greet him with open arms.
"Hi, Kathy, angel," he smiled, enfolding her in a bear hug which required considerable bending for his six foot plus frame. "You get prettier every day," he said, releasing her as he tilted her chin with a finger and dropped a kiss on her nose. "I don't know where it's all going to end."
"You're so nice," Kathy said, directly, the clear hazel eyes looking into Bib's affectionately, as she stepped back.
"It's being with nice girls makes me so," Bib kidded, smiling. "Normally, I'm a bad-tempered truck-driver-oh, Kathy, there's a bag in the back of the car. Would you get it for me, please?"
As the girl moved to comply, Grace frowned at him.
"Bib...." He held up a hand.
"Grace, I've drunk your whiskey for long enough to supply a little in return. Please don't fuss at me." He took the drink she offered, with a smile. "Listen," he continued as they moved back to the living room, "how do you think the girls would like it if we drove down to the ocean. I'm hungry for fish...."
"Bib, wherever you say is fine, but please don't spend a lot of money...."
"Grace Mullens, the last two times we've gone to dinner, I've gone where you wanted. Now it's my turn to pick ... OK? The cafeteria was fine ... tonight I have a window table reserved so we can watch the ocean perform for us...."
"Forgive me, Bib," Grace smiled. "I'm just too touchy for my own good, but I don't want us to be a...."
"You're all the family I have," Bib said, quietly and Grace heard the many unspoken things behind his words and slipped an arm about his waist, to hug him lightly. As they sat down, Terry danced in, greeting him boisterously.
"Uncle Bib!" she cried, running to him as Bib dexterously put down his glass before she flew into his arms.
"Hey, there Stop-Light!" he responded, the nickname stemming from Terry's shining red hair. "How did you get clean?"
"I took a bath," Terry said as she climbed onto his lap.
"Do you know you're beautiful, when I can see you?" he joked.
"Uncle Bib!" Terry protested, severely.
"I'm joking," he hastened to say. "You're beautiful even when you've got two pounds of dirt ground into you."
"Oh, Terry," Kathy said with lofty, teen-age dignity as she returned with the bag from Bib's car, passing through to deposit it the kitchen, "you'll get Uncle Bib all wrinkled...!"
"Gee, I forgot!" Terry said, sliding away to the sofa beside him, "I'm sorry."
"Terry, be sorry for nothing," Bib smiled, dropping the arm around the small, solid body to hug her close for a moment. "You're welcome to sit on my lap any time ... and so is Kathy. But she's getting so grown up she doesn't think it's dignified anymore."
Bib could never explain the shimmering of rapport which he always felt with the younger child. There was a warmth and slightly tugging aura about Terry which mystified him....
Kathy returned to sit on Bib's other side and he lifted his other arm to contain her straight shoulders. Smiling, Kathy lifted a hand to lightly clasp his fingers. Bib sat very quietly as he felt the warmth and trust and affection in Kathy, her eyes looking up into his. Then he turned to little Terry-and was a little shocked to feel it again-the sensation of warmth and the drawing toward the child.
Concealing his inward unease, he squeezed the youngsters against him briefly, then removed his arms and picked up his drink again.
"Well, Grace, let's drink up and roll. We can get another appetizer or so when we get down to the Shore Station. Would you girls like to have dinner by the ocean?"
Their excited assent answered his question....
The slimmer Kathy graduated from high school, Bib took her and Terry for a day at the beach. Grace, not a sun-worshipper, begged off and, with an abundance of food and a large cooler filled with ice and cans of beverages, they departed. Since it was a week-day, Bib had no trouble locating a stretch of beach which they had almost to themselves. It was a long and memorable day for the three, spent in alternating periods of splashing excitement in the sun, and lazing in somnolent and delicious relaxation under the beach umbrella. In addition to the cans of soft drinks in the cooler, Bib had included beer and a small jar of vodka Martinis, calculated to soothe his thirst. Terry, now nearly thirteen, insisted on sampling Bib's Martini and wrinkled her nose, disdainfully at its taste; then she began to bug him for a can of beer.
"Well, look, now," he protested, "I could go to jail for that....giving you beer." Terry giggled.
"I know," she said, "we'll pour it into an empty ginger ale can." So delighted with her ingenuity was she that Bib hadn't the heart to refuse her.
"I do this under protest," he said, rinsing the soft drink can to transfer the beer, "and just remember that your mother has to know what goes on...." Terry nodded her head, confidently.
"That, I know," she said, with no show of disturbance as she stretched an eager arm for the container. Kathy had remained silent, poised on her knees during the discussion and ensuing action. Now, she spoke up.
"Uncle Bib," she said, eyes dancing, "since this is in honor of my graduating from high school, can I have what I want?"
"Oh, lord," Bib said, checking himself halfway back to a reclining position, "Kathy, angel, what is on your female mind?"
"Well," she said, flashing a glance into Terry's mischievous eyes over the ginger ale can, "I would like to have a Martini."
"Sheesh!" Bib groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "I'll spend the rest of my life in jail for contributing...."
"Please, Uncle Bib," Kathy teased, caught up in the excitement of the day, "just one, little Martini?"
"Your mother will bat my brains out!" he wailed. Kathy shook her head.
"No she won't," she said, confidently. "If we're with you, she won't...."
"You'll get it on the rocks, Kathy-and, for heaven's sake, girl, please drink it slow."
"I will!" she said, eyes sparkling, watching his every move as he poured the contraband....
Kathy, slightly dizzy from the effects of the Martini, elected to go into the shallow surf, spending a half hour in the surge and spray of the ocean. Terry stood up and followed, trotting into the water.
"How do you feel, sis?" Kathy asked. Terry hugged her already-noteworthy bosom in shapely, round arms.
"Warm and soft and crazy," she giggled. "I'm gonna get wet and go stretch out in the shade with Uncle Bib."
Bib propped his head up to watch Terry come back from the water. His sunglasses shielded the concern in his eyes as they played over the entrancing lines of Terry's figure as she moved slowly, her toes enjoying plowing through the dry sand. The puzzling effect of the younger Mullens girl on John Bibby bad intensified over the years; sometimes he felt the pull of her so strongly he wondered if he might be sick, in some strange manner. Women were no problem with Bib. Naturally reticent, he hadn't bothered to get involved with the females which move in some truckers' orbits. In the matter of women, John was a loner and did his hunting in bars far removed from a trucker's natural locale. He sought and found a class of female companionship more to his taste in his hunting grounds....
Suddenly, watching Terry's slow progress up the beach, John knew a part of the 'thing' with Terry ... she was almost an exact duplicate of her mother! He sat up in his excitement, so he could see her more clearly. That was it-the set of her head, the shape of her arms and curve of her waist and hips-the high set of her breasts and the subtly inviting lines of thigh and leg ... it was Grace. Not a child Grace. It was something else-as though Grace had receded in time and passed him, stopping her retreat at 13. He did some quick arithmetic in his head at the same time his mind rejected it in panic. He was 29, nearing 30 ... impossible!
Terry moved beneath the shade of the umbrella, a vague smile on her lips, her eyes veiled. Sinking to her knees, she crawled to the beach towel beside Bib and stretched out, arms beneath her head. As she moved her hips to hollow out the sand beneath them more comfortably, Bib felt his heart leap-or skip a beat-as the taut, young body unconsciously performed the suggestive movement. He closed his eyes, leaning his head forward on forearms across his bended knees. Trying to shut out all sensation, he sat, trembling a little as he felt the familiar sensation begin to pulse inside him ... it was there. The warmth the feeling of being pulled, drawn toward the beautiful, precociously-developed child beside him. He shivered but savored the mysterious magnetism Terry generated for him. To disguise his feelings, he lay back again.
He felt a warm pressure against his thigh and looked down to see Terry's round knee had moved against him. She did not remove it and he forced himself to lie, quietly, feeling in a simultaneous surge of confusion, the pulse of desire beginning to swell....
Not knowing what to do, he demanded: "Smashed-on beer?" Terry, dreamy-eyed, rose on an elbow, shaking her head with a smile.
"No, Uncle Bib, I just feel all warm and dreamy and lovey...." He almost went into shock as she half turned her body against his, feeling the hard pressure of her breast, the delightful weight of a rounded arm as it traversed his chest, putting her head on his shoulder. Paralyzed, Bib could feel his heart pounding and a painful constriction increasing in the tight swim trunks. Then the firmness of Terry's warm thigh moved over his and, as indecision ripped at him, the round limb came to rest on the painful stress of his arousal. He could feel Terry stiffen for a moment and, in panic, he snaked away to sit on one hip.
Terry got to her knees with a wondering smile on her red lips. "Why, Uncle Bib-you-you're shook...!"
Gulping he grasped her shoulders and shook her a little. "Listen, Terry-baby, please ... this is one thing your mother must never know! Promise?" The pressure of his hands on her shoulders hurt. Terry winced and nodded as Bib sprinted, clumsily, toward the concealment and succor of the ocean....
When Terry got the female lead in the high school musical, she was something of a local phenomenon. Someone on the school paper dug up the fact it was the first time a sophomore student had ever made it and the local newspaper made a feature story of the event. Her almost professional poise and assurance made her a hit and the three night run closing the school year elicited another daily newspaper feature, this time not on the teen page.
Grace, no less than Bib, was somewhat astounded at the abrupt emergence of a performer in the Mullens family but Grace's astonishment was diluted somewhat in a flash of recollection. Big Terry had an innate ability to command attention by the tone of his voice, the choice of his words and the compelling quality of his gestures. So she felt a surge of relief that Terry's life had taken a direction which was solidly based on inherited instinct and not through the eternal pressures of whimsy....
"Since I'm such a big deal," Terry demanded, "I want Uncle Bib to take me on another beach picnic."
Her words fell into a silent spot in another family dinner out. Bib's eyes darted from Terry to Grace to Kathy but came back to hold Terry's. He couldn't read her....
"Terry," Grace started to protest at her daughter's brashness, "don't impose on Bib...."
"Wait...." Bib choked, cleared his throat and went on " ... a minute. This-nothing this family wants is any imposition. I'm proud of-I've tried to let you know you're all the family I know; have ever known. I...." He broke off, and under the scrutiny of three pairs of eyes, his face began to flush. "I'm sorry," he said, gaining control of himself with an effort, "I'm sorry I can't refer to you as 'my family' but-well, no matter. Grace, if it's alright with you, I'll take Terry on a beach picnic. Can you and Kathy go ... take a day off? I can't change my run with Chuck and Dodge on vacation...."
"I'd love it, but I think I'd better not," Kathy said, regretfully. "I'm doing so well at the office, I can't believe it...."
"Bib, the sun just blisters me," Grace said, "I'd be a drag ... a party-pooper. I'm sorry I popped off and I apologize for the crack about 'imposition.' Please forgive me." Grace's hand moved to lie on Bib's as he nodded and a smile forced its way back to his face.
He looked back at Terry. "OK for Wednesday?" he asked.
"Wonderful," she breathed, innocence blazoned on eyes and lips....
Bib couldn't assess his feelings accurately as he picked Terry up that morning, but the brief beach coat flared with her every move as she came across the porch and down the walk.
"Thank you, Bib," she said, moving across the seat of the car close to him, "for doing this. I have a lot of things I want to talk to you about and this seemed the best way...."
He cut his eyes at her, startled, but there was no change of expression as she smiled up at him, innocence the overriding message in lips and eyes. They arrived at the beach to find almost the same place they'd had two years previously, when Kathy graduated. As the umbrella was raised and planted, Terry busied herself with beach towels.
"Gee, we must be almost the first ones here. Almost nobody's around ... like they knew I wanted you all to myself."
Startled, Bib looked at the girl as she stretched out on the towel, feeling a sensation of warmth as she agitated the firm buttocks to imprint them more comfortably against the sand. She smiled up at him and patted the towel beside her. "Lie down, Bib ... I want to talk to you." She chuckled. "That's a joke, bub."
"I know it is," he answered, a little testily to his surprise. Already the magic of Terry's nearness was at work on him. In the two years since Kathy's graduation, the red-haired youngster's body had subtly refined and intensified in its earlier promise. Where previously Terry's figure had drawn his eyes because of the surprising excellence of its proportions, now the attraction was intensified by the ripening of her lines and the subtle maturation of her personality. Terry had grown a little taller, in stature, but this had contributed to the refinement, the intensification of her basic, provocative appeal to his eyes and his emotions. Pulsing beneath all the surface allure was the pressure, the urgency of her extreme youth-the threatening-to-burst quality of youth ... to say nothing of the secret lure of forbidden delight.
Bib felt confusion mix with his emotions in a greater proportion as his eyes hungrily feasted on Terry's supine body. The warmth of her he'd always felt had turned to heat; the magnetic pull she exercised over his emotions was increasing like a whirlpool....
"You said you had a lot of things you wanted to talk about...." Bib tossed the words out with more bravado than he felt. Terry's head turned as she looked at him, nodding, and let the silence grow for a few moments.
"Could I have a beer?" she asked, sitting up with a graceful action of her body. "I-I'm going to need help to loosen my tongue." Bib looked at her, beneath a slight frown, then produced two cans of beer and opened them.
"OK, but keep an eye out for cops," he muttered.
"Bib," she began slowly, "I think I've always been in love with you." Shocked Bib stared straight ahead at the beer can, half-way to his mouth. "A long time ago, it was like a little girl and her daddy. Everything about you was right and wonderful-but I only thought about you when I was having good, happy thoughts. Then, a little later, the feeling began to change. When I was about eight or nine, I could feel something, when I was close to you. I couldn't have told you what it was, but I could feel it. I can feel it now, and it's stronger than ever."
Bib mechanically completed the movement with the can of beer and nodded, numbly. "Yes," he croaked, clearing his throat.
Terry's eyes leaped swiftly to his face. "You mean, you feel it, too?" He nodded, again. She exhaled a breath, deep-pent from inner tension and smiled. "Well, if you feel it too, that does it."
"Does what?" Bib demanded, mystified, his eyes darting to the irresistable lure of Terry's delectable body to retreat again as though stung.
"Makes telling all this easier," she said. "Anyhow, in the past few years, several things have happened to me. Inside. Things I didn't dare tell Mom-and didn't want to. There've always been some secret things Mom didn't know, but I felt they were things that would upset her." Terry took another long pull from the beer can. "But, ever since Kathy's graduation picnic, I've been growing up, pretty fast." She moved the body which was disconcerting Bib to a constantly increasing degree, closer to him. With a small leap of panic, he felt the curve of a firm hip lightly against his. "What happened with you and me on that picnic," she said, levelly, her eyes holding his, "set off a whole string of firecrackers inside me."
"Terry...." Bib started to apologize in a strained voice which she choked off by half-turning against him and rubbing one small palm over his chest. That set off a string of firecrackers in Bib.
"Bib, I've been curious as a bug about sex since I was seven or eight. It began with fighting with boys under the freight house. I got a few bloody noses, but I learned pretty good ... so the boys stopped picking on me. I got to be one of them, pretty much. When we had to take a leak, they kidded me because I didn't have a dingus ... but I learned to do it, standing up." Terry giggled at Bib's shock, and took another big swallow of beer, as the crimson rushed up into his face. Then she laughed aloud, at his discomfiture.
"Terry, honey, I...." Bib, trying to protest, tried to rise, but the firm pressure of Terry's small hand restrained him. That hand, on his chest, was playing havoc with his emotions, too....
"When we got older, the boys wanted to wrestle, and we did. And, it was exciting, but I balked when they wanted me to take my pants off, because they refused to take theirs off." The head of Terry's hand in its movement, had worked its way up his chest and he jerked as her fingertips began lightly playing with his nipple. Outraged, he looked into her eyes, starting to protest, but something in them stopped him. "I sensed what they wanted to do, but I wouldn't let them. I found ways to turn them off or, if I wanted to, take care of them." Terry's round arm tilted the beer can to empty it and drop it by the food hamper. With another surge of shock, Bib felt Terry's hand leave his chest and begin to caress the plane of his abdomen.
"Terry, baby, this is...." he tried to rise and tried to talk again, but the smiling, determined Terry leaned, half-above him and he met the hard bulge of her young breast and retreated.
"Terry is no longer a baby, Bib," she said, soberly, her fingers toying with the hair on his flat belly. The swell of discomfort began in his loins under her touch; perspiration breaking out on his forehead. "I've had some experiences with high school boys ... older boys and they've wanted the same thing the kids I used to play with wanted." She shook her head. "I know what happens with girls who go that route. There are three of them-pregnant-in my class, right now. Terry Anson Mullens is not going to be a mattress-back for a bunch of snot-nosed kids. I have a reputation to keep-I'm going into show business and I'm not going as a tramp." Bib jumped, for real as her pink fingertips dipped enticingly under the tight elastic of his swim trunks, the muscles of his abdomen contracting in shock. The jungle beat of his heart was pounding against Terry's breast. She could feel the excited pulse of it beneath her, as his heart thudded against his ribs. "When I felt your...." she indicated his loins by an increased penetration of her fingers beneath the top of his trunks, " ... that day on Kathy's picnic, I began to put some things together in my head." She snuggled to stretch half-over Bib, her tight breast swelling outward a little against the heave of his chest. "Bib, what I feel isn't anything but good, old-fashioned, hot-pants love. I've been half-ding-a-ling with some of those boys feeling me up and kissing me, trying to get into my pants."
A strangled sound escaped Bib as the questing fingers beneath his trunks touched him, Terry darting glances around to make sure they were unobserved. "Terry, for God's sake!" he gasped in his panic mixed with desire.
"Bib, honey, darling," her voice began again, low, husky and entreating; her determined fingers capturing, moving, straightening his throbbing masculinity to ease it upward, under his trunks, "I want you. Bib, Bib ... please do it to me. I want to know what a real man is all about. I know all the rest of it, Bib...." Her fingers were around him now, and the slow, knowing movement of her hand was choking him with delight, his breath catching in a hard wad at the tops of his lungs. He felt something hot splash on the skin of his shoulders, his startled eyes recording the fact that Terry's were spilling tears down her cheeks. She released him, to bring both arms upward to hug him, moving her body tight against his, her taut, young thigh moving over him to prison his stinging excitement with the weight of its perfection. Bib groaned aloud, his hands instinctively flattening against her back to press her closer to him.
"Terry, darling-how can I...?"
"Don't stall me, Bib. You know how. And I know how you've wanted Mom, all these years." She lifted her head, the tears still rolling. "Don't you think I'm a half-size smaller picture of Mom?" she said, a smile touching her trembling lips. "Wouldn't you like to make love to me? You'd be having Mom and me, all rolled into one, Bib!" A small sob caught in her throat. "I know th-this is all there c-can be f-for us, be-because I know you. I know darling, Bib, that we Move each other, in some c-crazy, mixed-up way! Let's go home Bib-take me home and make love to me, please?"
Bib lifted the two of them to a sitting position, his body shaking. "I'll take you home to get dressed," he growled, shakily. "Then, God help me, we'll go to my place...."
"I wanted to explain about this afternoon," John Carrol said to Terry when they'd relaxed with drinks. "I'm sorry I ran out...."
"Oh, Johnny, you don't owe me explanations," she smiled warmly. Her voice low and inviting, brushed his nerves with the same, pleasurable irritation he remembered. John stared at Terry, clad in another green dress which lifted her breasts, tapered spectacularly at the waist and flared. The brief skirt displayed an exciting picture of her provocative legs which had fascinated him so much at their first meeting.
"Terry, there are some explanations in order-things to be put straight," he said rising to stand before her, impelled by a sudden impulse to be closer to her. She raised her head to smile up at him and John again was intrigued by the innocence of eyes and mouth. His eyes couldn't resist dropping to the tight bodice; the delightful shadowed valley which lay between the polished twin rounds of her full breasts, the swells of them above the bodice, catching the soft light of the office lamps. John stifled an impulse to lean down and softly apply his lips to them.
"How-your drink alright, straight?" John asked, forcing himself back to his duties as host. Terry smilingly put him at ease.
"I like my liquor the way it's served," she said, and again John was drawn by the apparent innocence of her eyes and mouth.
"I thought you might," he said, feeling a little more at ease.
"Why?"
"Well, you seem to be a real, live swinger, where living is concerned," he explained. "You come on like you like it."
"You always that accurate in diagnosing women?" she asked.
"Let's just say I've talked to lots of girls in this office and seldom are they uninteresting." Terry nodded.
"Few people are, really, I would guess," she said, swirling the liquid in her glass. Their eyes hadn't left each other since she'd taken her glass from John.
"Speaking of swinging, John," Terry said softly, "I'm a swinger in the accepted sense. I don't make a big thing of it and I'm choosy about it, but I tell you because I want to ask: are you a swinger, John?" The frankness, without boldness, really-just honestly bringing him up to date on the girl-stopped John.
"Well," he stalled, grinning, "what would be your reading on me?"
"I'd say you're a very sensitive man and, given the opportunity or the provocation, you'd be a swinger, yes." Terry took a generous swallow of her drink. A little smile touched her lips and John noted the little dimples at each corner of the full, soft lips.
John sat beside her and, the moment he did so, he realized how inexperienced he was. Terry was the first woman he'd even looked at with desire-real desire since he'd gotten married. His sex life prior to marrying Alice hadn't prepared him for casual affairs. Somewhere in John's upbringing, he'd acquired the attitude that sex was something for marriage. If you hadn't wedlock in mind, sex was out. John recognized that his was not a philosophy which was widely held and there had been times when he wondered why his differed sc. He'd given up trying to isolate the source of it but acknowledged to himself it was probably in something he'd heard his father or mother say, or indicate by something they'd said.
"A-about this afternoon, Terry," he said, "forget it. Not the kiss," he grinned, "but...."
"About your wife?" she asked, openly, her face expressionless and only the twinkle of the innocent blue eyes betraying she was needling.
"That and anything you might have heard about me. Okay?"
"First, Johnny," she said, moving to face him, her knee touching his as she did, "I don't give a damn about your wife-I should say about your private life. That's your business, entirely. I want everything out of life I can have-I want to be a star-I want to know sex with all the people in whom I feel a deep enough attraction-I want to miss nothing that a normal person should experience. If you're worring about my knowing you have a wife, forget it. I know and I haven't changed my attitude about the rest of it."
John took another drink, impatient for the liquor to remove the feeling of awkwardness which persisted in him. "I...."
"You'd like to make love to me, wouldn't you?" she asked, the mischief evident in her eyes, now. John knew she was perceptive enough to sense his discomfort and was enjoying it-not maliciously-but teasingly. "Alright, I'll tell you what I think about it. I like the idea-and I liked it from the moment I walked into your office today. I told myself then: 'this man looks good to me and if the chance comes, I'll take it.' I want to know what you're like but that's all, Johnny. It's not a matter of undying devotion and I'm not about to fall in love with you. I'm attracted to you and I'd like to taste you...."
John looked at her, silently, as a few seconds passed. Then his smile came back.
"You know, Terry, you're quite a woman," he said, huskily.
"I've been told that before," she chuckled. "Men find it hard to understand why a woman would come right out and discuss her desires in the matter, but I don't give a tinker's toot. I know all about the female mystique and all that jazz-but I have just as much right to express my feelings as a man.
"You do it better, I'll bet," John grinned.
"I don't go along with this double standard thing. If men can do pretty much what they like, I think women should have the same privilege. I was introduced to sex at fifteen-and I like it. Love it, in fact and, with the protection a girl has today, I indulge my tastes. I'll say this, the men who strike my fancy aren't numerous. You happen to be a man who excites me and I'd like to know what you're like-and have you know what I'm like. This is good Scotch-it's getting to me-but you got to me a long time before, so ... how about it?"
Terry's smile was warm and inviting, the full lips shining and moist as John leaned forward to kiss them.
The instant they touched, the room was charged with electricity.
John almost jumped at the erotic reaction which surged through him at the touch of her soft mouth. He forgot what he was thinking-that Terry was completely different than he'd expected. This thinking he'd not have been surprised to hear from Frankie Robbins, but, coming from Terry with the innocent eyes and mouth....
She came into his arms, hungrily as their mouths teased and inflamed each other. Terry tugged away to breathe and got to her feet.
"This dress is choking me," she chuckled, unzipping it at the back in a fluid motion and stepping out of it. Her only clothing now was snug, sheer panties and a half-bra which left the cherry-pink tips of her bosoms open to his hungry eyes. She wore no hose, yet, standing in her heels, the shape of her legs was no less effective than when he'd eyed them earlier in their nylon casings. John's lips instinctively dropped to a swelling nipple as Terry came back into his arms and he exulted at the way she writhed in his arms as he gently possessed the hard, pink confection.
"Oh, Johnny, that drives me wild!" she gasped. He believed her.
"They're beautiful," he hissed, returning to them, avidly, lowering her to the cool surface of the sofa, the heat of her tensing, lovable body rising into him as they pressed together.
"Love them, Johnny-love me!" she gasped. "This is what I want-this kind of love...!"