Chapter 16
Jane Wilson reported to my office first thing the next morning. This time she wore a dress, a very tight-fitting red cotton affair which showed off her slim legs to greatest advantage. There was something very troubling about her, because her sandy hair was still closely cropped and she didn't wear any makeup at all. I summoned her to my private office and we had an interview, or what passed for one. I agreed to give her seventy-five dollars a week for nine-to-five switchboard duties and occasional filing and correspondence whenever needed, and she was quite happy.
She told me that she felt very much better and that Madge Fryburg must have put some very effective medications on her back. I told myself it was time to put some effective medications into Madge Fryburg while the latter was on her back, too. That little handkerchief trick which Jane's cousin had perpetrated on me last night had only served to make me randier, though maybe it was because of my fantasy of the bedroom wallpaper. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind introducing Brenda herself into my bedroom with a blindfold on. I could envision that slim, haughty, silver-blonde piece tied up by the thumbs with a yardstick between her legs, naked except for a bra, hose and a garterbelt and nothing else, a blindfold over her eyes, me standing before her with a feather in one hand and a hairbrush in the other, reaching around to bang her naked bottom to make her lunge forward so that I could tickle her pussy until she spent. If I ever got a chance to do that, I promised myself, Brenda Corey wouldn't be able to satisfy me just with her fingers shielded by a handkerchief.
In the afternoon I went over to Charlie Karogian's office and told him about my conversation with Philip Young. He had the will out to read for me and, just as I had figured, there was only about ten thousand dollars in cash as Dad's inheritance gift to his only and rather profligate son. I suggested to Charlie that I pay about eight grand of that on the mortgage, and he thought it was a splendid idea. From what he knew of Overland Trust and Savings, he was a little leery of their way of doing business. They seemed to be quite adequately financed, and they seemed to have as much cash as they had paper out, which was healthy, but he had heard some rumors about stock manipulations and transfers of deeds of property which didn't set too well with him. Apparently, when they got hold of a guy they could pinch, they really tightened the screws. I asked Charlie if he thought they could take away Dad's land, and he nodded gloomily.
"I'm afraid they can, Carl boy. This eight thousand dollars you intend to put down will be a very substantial payment plus interest, but still that miserable clause in that mortgage gives them the power to demand full payment at any time before the five years are up. I can't for the life of me understand why your father let himself be conned into signing a proposition like that."
I couldn't either, for the life of me. But I told Charlie I was going to go to work in the vineyard myself, just like a common peon or paisano, getting some of the sun, working with the rest of the laborers, and being in on the harvest. I had made a couple of wealthy friends in San Francisco while selling real estate, and maybe I could hit them for a loan and even give them an option on some of Dad's acres. Probably the acres which had been converted to fruits and vegetables, so they could get some money back at once. Charlie thought that was a good idea, too. But he warned me to prepare myself for a dirty deal at any time, just in case, so I wouldn't be too disillusioned.
I didn't go right home after work, and instead drove down to the mall and had supper at a nice little restaurant, more of a tearoom. I didn't want any shish-kabob or spicy foods, because it was still pretty scorchy. A good chicken salad and some iced tea hit the spot. Then I decided to take in a movie, so it was about quarter of eleven when I got out and went back to the Thunderbird and drove into the driveway of the house. There was a light in the living room. I frowned. I didn't have any valet or butler or maid, and so far as I knew no one else had a key to Dad's house except myself. Who the devil could be there?
I saw a small green sports roadster parked in front of the curb right smack opposite the front walk leading to the house, but I didn't recognize it. I unlocked the door, and there was Sally Jeffries-Sally Poster, rather. She was sitting on the couch, hugging her knees, looking very scared, and there were tears in her eyes.
"Sally-how the devil did you get in?" I wanted to know.
"I-I came here about half an hour ago; Don had to go down to the studio because they had a power failure, and he expects to be there all night. I left a note that I had a terrible headache and was going to town maybe to see a doctor and might take a drive to cool off. We've had some terrible arguments ever since that night."
"I'm sorry, Sally. I couldn't help overhearing some of the snotty things your husband said to you," I said. I didn't think it exactly ethical to tell her that I had seen him whipping her while I was in spying position crouching behind the hedge and looking through the half-opened French doors of their bedroom.
She nodded, bit her lips. "I know. But I got in because I went around the back and the kitchen window was open and-well-I'm awfully sorry, but I just had to see you, Carl dear, so I got in this way and then I decided to turn on the light and wait for you."
"Well, just so long as I know you weren't here to burgle the place, it's fine," I said with a smile. "Only trouble is, the house to the south is owned by a real old gossipy and nosy bitch who knows what everybody and his brother are doing at any hour of the day or night. I've seen her peeking out of the curtains, looking over here, every so often. She's trying to find out if I'm having an orgy. Every time I go out to the garbage can, I can see her nosing around, trying to see if I'm going to burn it without a permit." That's one thing about towns in California-you're allowed to burn your own garbage, but you have to get a written permit from City Hall, and you're only given certain days and certain hours you can do it.
"That's awful."
"Yes, it is. But maybe the poor old gal gets the only enjoyment she has in life by watching what I'm doing, so I don't want to deprive her. But I was thinking of your reputation. If she just happened to see you crawl in here, chances are she'd call the police or first come over here and glue her ear to the window to hear what was going on."
I was referring to Mrs. Henrietta Steerway, a dowdy old crone in her early sixties, who used to screech at her grandchildren, "Don't make so much noise, you little bastards, or I won't leave you my money when I die." I had known all about her when I had been living with Dad. Oftentimes she had telephoned Dad to tell him I was making too much racket warming up my jalopy in the garage, or that she'd seen me downtown walking with some girl. He had hated her guts as much as I always had. And I was sure she knew I was back by now, and she was just lying in wait for me, to see how I was going to act.
"But that's not the reason you came over here, Sally," I went on. "What's on your mind?"
"It's Don. I never should have married him, but Mother wanted me to, you know."
"I understand. My dad didn't want me to marry you either, so that makes us even."
"He's terribly jealous. He's never really had any reason to be, but now that you're back and you made the mistake of calling on me at the house, he's just been wild. He-he beat me that other night, after you'd gone."
"He did?" I hoped my voice showed enough surprise.
"Yes. You want to see?"
Before I could stop her, Sally Foster had risen from the couch, hauled off her dress and slip, and stood there before me in a pair of black nylon panties and matching bra, and she wasn't wearing any stockings, and she had on open-toed sandals. Her warm, olive-sheened skin, the sight of her thrusting titties, her magnificent behind, made my prick strain and shudder with desire. I could see the welts on her back, faded though they were. They were still ugly stigmata against that lovely skin of hers.
"He does this to me all the time, Carl darling. I wouldn't mind so much if he'd only love me, but he just laughs and says my mother was a whore. He says the reason he married me was so he could feel superior."
"I know the type. I sort of sized him up when we had a little chat in the hallway there, you know."
"You know, I've always loved you, Carl. I need love so bad. Please love me now," Sally Foster whispered. She sat on the edge of the couch now, her arms around me, and her lips were moist and trembling against mine. I could see her and taste her and smell her, and my prick was bulging with savage lust.
My hands found her titties and squeezed them through the thin bra. She moaned arid put her tongue between my lips, and all the old fiery lust I had always had for her came back a thousandfold. I lifted her up in my arms and carried her upstairs to my room. There weren't any illustrations up there yet, so we couldn't play the Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey yet. But we could play other games that would bring back the lost years.
I know it was crazy. There was always the danger that her husband might come home early and put two and two together and drive out here and try to stage a little jealousy act That wouldn't have been fair to Dad's reputation, even though I didn't care about my own. On the way upstairs, Sally Foster unhooked her own bra and let it flutter down the stairway. Her titties were gorgeous. The aureolae were darker now, the nipples were pouting and standing stiff with longing. I bent my head and kissed each one in turn.
I laid her down on the bed, turned the key in the lock, and began to undress. But when I was naked and coming towards her, she wriggled onto her belly, wearing just her panties now, having kicked off her sandals, and she put her chin on her folded arms arid murmured huskily, "Oh darling, I've been such a naughty girl to have forsaken you! I ought to have gone to San Francisco after you. What I need is an awfully good spanking before you fuck me. Please do it to me, Carl, because Don beats me all the time in hate. I want to be beaten in love."
I understood now. Sally Jeffries had perhaps always been a masochist, and perhaps that was why she had married Don Foster, because she realized that through his arrogant snobbery and high socialite position, he would be the type who would take the cudgels to her. Only she had got more than she had bargained for. He probably wasn't the screwing kind, but maybe liked to thrash her and then jack off all by himself.
"Whatever happened to your mother, honey?" I said hoarsely. It was torture to watch her thus, because she was wriggling her bottom to and fro, and the black nylon panties followed every voluptuous curve, even to the sinuous crease between the cheeks of her luscious bottom.
"She married somebody about two years ago and moved to Los Angeles, honey. But please don't waste time talking. Give me a good sound spanking, then fuck me. I need it so badly," Sally Jeffries murmured.
I lost my self-control. Five years of wasted time and nostalgia and longing were all pent-up in me. I crossed over to the bed, knelt on it, rucked down her panties to her thighs, and then, with my left palm on the middle of her moist, olive-sheened back, I raised my right hand and I gave her fully as hard a spanking as I had given Maxine Lavolta.
She whimpered and writhed, she moaned and sobbed, but her face was a mask of sensual ecstasy. And when at last I had finished, she twisted herself over onto her scarlet bottom, spread her legs after first kicking off her panties, and held out her arms to me.
"Oh God, oh God, it was so good," she groaned. "Fuck me, fuck me, Carl, fuck me hard and make me cry!"
I did.