Chapter 13
"I don't like it, Hugh," Jennifer Laurens murmured. "I don't like it at all. Mel works for you, yet we know so little about him. Can he be trusted? Shan shouldn't have brought him in." Jennifer raised her drink to her lips.
Hugh Laurens smiled without humor. "Come off it, Jenny. You like him. Like that meat of his, anyway. Think I haven't seen the way you eat him up? Don't worry. He's okay."
Jennifer looked critically at her fingernails. "How do you know? And why hasn't he brought his wife? If she doesn't know, that could be dynamite. I don't want to end up in some scandal sheet. Do you?"
"No," Laurens admitted, picturing the lurid headlines and the equally lurid pictures. Christ! I can be worse than ruined.
"And those horrible movies you've been making." Jennifer shuddered. "If they fell into the wrong hands, I'd die. I'd simply die. I wish you'd at least buy a safe to keep them in."
Laurens laughed and began mixing himself another drink. "We'll sell those someday, and make a fortune. All the 'stars' will be anxious to pay. They'll scream, of course, but who's going to hear them?"
"Sometimes I wonder about you, Hugh," Jennifer remarked. "Why can't you be like me? I like the parties for their own sake. I don't want to hurt the people-or blackmail them."
"So do I. It's a reflex action, I suppose. I like to protect myself and spice things up at the same time. This is the best way."
Jennifer yawned into her glass. "I'm not so sure. Fill mine again, will you?"
He filled hers and handed it back, eyeing her lush body. He wondered why he should ever want to look at another woman. Jennifer really should have been all he needed. Only she stirred conflicting emotions in him. Sometimes he was sure he hated her. On occasion, he even felt like killing her. A couple of nights back, he almost had. "I love you, baby," he said softly, to see how she would react.
"I love you, too," she returned. But her mind seemed to be elsewhere.
He sat up straight on the sofa. "Then what caused the big scene the other night? You certainly weren't acting like the loving wife then."
"What caused it?" She spun around to face him. "You were brutal and nasty, that's what caused it! A woman wants something more!"
Laurens stared at her, hearing the hate in her voice for the first time. He responded with anger that he was barely able to conceal. "Brutal and nasty?"
"You were disgusting!"
"You never thought so before," he reminded her.
"You never treated me like that before." Jennifer downed her drink defiantly.
They were starting another one, he realized. Another knock-down-drag-out. And he wasn't ready to fight with her. Not yet. "So I wanted you and you didn't want me. Hell, I told you I was sorry. Anyway, isn't that what marriage is all about? Isn't it? A man and a woman? Fucking?"
"No!" she flung at him. "There's more. Much .more. Loyalty, for. example. Being around when someone needs you. Giving, Loving. Sharing. Sharing the same goals." She reached for more vermouth. "Exactly what do we share, Hugh? Other than a too-frequent tendency to go for each other's throats?"
"We share a lot, and you know it." He left the sofa and went to her. "Come on, baby, let's ease off on the static. Life is too short. Too goddamned short. I want to love you tonight, not fight." He slid an arm around her, tried to draw her close. She resisted, then let herself be embraced, to be pulled closer until he felt the pressure of her breasts against his chest.
"We're good together, admit it." Laurens heard his own voice in wonderment. He hadn't known before that he could charm someone so completely, disguise his real feelings so thoroughly. He hated this woman, yet she would never know it until he told her. He might never.
"Yes. Kiss me."
He kissed her. There was a mixture of fascination and loathing in his passion. He was unlike his usual self. Thoughts of Jennifer with Mel Martin-and other men-fanned the fires of jealousy, stoking him to fever pitch. At the same time his sexual need made his rod thrust hard against his pants. He began to plan.
First he would play her whoring body like a fine instrument, drawing out the feeling for both of them and making it last for hours. Then, when they were sated, when they had stopped for drinks or to catch their breaths, he would lower the boom. He would ask for the divorce that he had wanted for so long.
He ran a hand up between them until his fingers found her blouse. His fingers fell upon her full, supple breasts. "I've always loved you," he whispered in her ear. He made the words, with an effort, sound normal. "Will you always love me? Will you?"
She hesitated, then her lips covered his. He didn't have time to consider the full implications and meaning of her failure to answer.
Their bodies came together more intimately. He held her head and crushed his lips against hers. The first kiss was tentative, then passionate, as their mouths opened and their tongues met.
Memories of all their years together, all the times they had aroused one another this way, swelled to torment him.
Laurens worked furiously on Jennifer's tongue, drawing it deeply into his mouth. Before marriage, they had spent hours kissing and hugging. Now it was just minutes. Their responses were too fast.
He slipped his left hand up under her blouse, around to her back until he found her bra hook. He managed to unclasp it without letting go of her. Seconds later, he had disposed of her bra. He cupped her naked breasts, squeezing, fondling. He used his thumb and forefinger to pinch her nipple. Jennifer writhed, nursing more thirstily on his tongue.
Yes, she was ready for him. Or soon would be. He hadn't expected it to happen so easily. After their near brawl of the other night-and the near repeat of a few minutes before-he had anticipated resistance, lots of it. A long buildup during which he would coax, promise and cajole. Instead, she had dropped into his waiting arms like a ripe plum. Soon she would be ready to be enjoyed.
The nipples of her breasts had turned rigid against his palms. He wanted to take time out to kiss them, only she had imprisoned his tongue within her mouth and showed no inclination to let him go. Between them, his shaft had become an iron-hard tool.
Finally-it might have been minutes, it might have been an hour or more-they moved to the sofa. His hips moved between Jennifer's thighs. She began to twist and grind beneath him, even caressed his hard-on against the moistness of her cunt. He kissed and tongued her breasts and nipples, moving from one to the other, then back again. In forty-six years, a man learned a lot. Jennifer's moans of pleasure seemed real. Real or not, they drove him on to greater efforts, to greater heights of pleasure.
Let's make the last one the best one, Jennifer. then took it into his mouth, to stimulate her breasts even more.
Jennifer sobbed, gasping, surging up to offer him her other breast. He accepted gladly, giving her other breast as much attention as he had given the first. His hands glided down between them until he reached her pubic mount. He kneaded the area until she begged him to stop.
He wanted to get naked, to feel her bare flesh against his. If he didn't sample all she had to offer this last time, he knew that he would never forgive himself. Hurriedly, he lifted her skirt, dragging her panties down to expose the lush growth of pubic hair between her legs. She opened his fly and searched for his prick. There was something about the alertness of her reaction that startled and, in a vague way, pleased him. He was even more pleased by the way her fingers squeezed around his hard-on.
Because he knew she wanted him to, he lay down beside her so that she could more easily caress him while he did the same for her. There was nothing he wouldn't do for her this last time. Nothing. While she held his prick, he vigorously massaged her cunt-lips, caressing and squeezing her thighs at the same time. Imaginging other men doing this for her made him try harder to thrill her. Once upon a time Jennifer could be brought to climax by this method alone. Tonight, too, he hoped.
After a minute, she cried out, pumping faster on his shaft.
That's one for old times' sake, darling!
He tried again to make her come, thrusting a tongue into her cunt, parting the lips and biting gently. Thighs hugging his neck, she begged him to keep it up. In motion with his tonguing, she palmed his prick. Gave it, in his opinion, a good workout.
Too good a workout. He sprang up to fuck her. She moved onto her back and opened her pussy wide for him. Airways Flying Service and his newest pilot seemed a world away at that moment. Laurens thrust his prick inside the woman he no longer wanted, who, in all probability, no longer wanted him. Her cunt swallowed him up.
Then he was churning, not waiting for her. He realized that neither of them wanted to wait. Nor did he care, at this point, about her needs. His climax approached, and his prick tensed, swelling inside her, discharging lustily. No sooner had he spilled the last spasm of sperm inside her than he withdrew, so quickly that she couldn't stop him.
Jennifer reached for his cock, still frantic with desire. "Hugh, pleasel I'll make it hard!"
He laughed and shook his head. "No. Never again. I won't let you."
"What?"
"We're through," he informed her. "I'm seeing a lawyer tomorrow. I want a divorce."
"No!" Jennifer stared at him incredulously. "Hugh, you can't be serious! A divorce? Why?"
"I am serious," he assured her, looking for his pants. "I've had enough. Enough of you, enough of marriage. I want to be free again."
"But-we had so much going for us," she stammered. "The parties-"
"The parties are nothing!" he shouted at her. "Nothing! Do you hear? I can do without them, too. I have enough films."
"Enough?" Jennifer's face whitened.
He grinned. "You know what I mean. There isn't a stag outfit in the country that wouldn't pay plenty for each one I have. And I must have a hundred or more."
"You're insane!" she screamed at him. "Insane! Sick! You're going to blow yourself sky-high and take me with you!"
Laurens nodded. "So be sure you're there for the explosion. I'm throwing the last party tomorrow night. And I'm dedicating it to you!"
She surprised him then, slapping his face. "I hate you!"
"That doesn't surprise me." He watched her grab her clothes and run into the bedroom, slamming the door. He expected to feel good, high even, now that he had tossed her out of his life. He didn't. He felt wretched. And he was dismayed to realize that he was not looking forward to the last party.
Hugh Laurens was ready to acknowledge the truth: he was a sick man.