Chapter 10
There was no one there that Anna knew except Jake Ralston and his wife. It was odd to enter a house in Pine Junction and see six faces you had never seen before. Not at the lone supermarket, or at the post office where everyone kept a lock box. But Jake had said these people were not from Pine Junction, and it made sense; in a town this size, everybody would know about this kind of party inside of a few days.
It had not been an easy decision for the young wife to come tonight, and even now Anna was far from certain she was right. But right or wrong, it was her decision to live with, even if she lived with it alone.
At first she thought she had the wrong house, for though there were three cars in the driveway, the house seemed to be without lights. She double-checked the address and went up to the front door; it opened without her ringing the bell and Jake Ralston filled the doorway with his enormous bulk.
"I thought you'd make it, baby," he grinned and cast an appraising eye over her mini-dress and boots.
"I-I wasn't sure I would come," she said. "But...."
"Don't give it another thought, honey. We all had second-thoughts the first time. You'll know better before the night's over. How 'bout your husband? Did he chicken out like I figured?"
"I don't know ... he wasn't home when I left, but I left him a message to come if he wants to."
"Well, let's stop talking and get you introduced around. My pal Dick is just starting the movie."
"Movie?"
"Sure, a little warm-up," he explained as they crossed the foyer and walked into the living room. Anna could barely see in the dim light but she knew there were people seated about the room, some on the floor, others on sofas or chairs. "It's just to get things in the right mood." He patted her affectionately on her buttocks, a pat that became a lingering caress, but he drew his hand away before they reached his wife.
Anna felt a shudder of anxiety in her belly, but she had no desire, like the first time, to turn and run. Maybe she was a slut underneath, just like Jake had said, maybe she was some kind of sex-maniac just waiting for the right moment to explode, like a land mine.
"Hi, Anna, glad you could make it," said Connie Ralston cheerily. Anna could barely see her face, but it was obvious that she was smiling. Did Jake tell her about Wednesday afternoon? Surely he did, or he wouldn't have invited me to this party! But she isn't sulking like Leonard ... or is there something I don't know? It was actually the second time Anna had suspected she had been used, but this time it seemed more likely. To her own amazement, though, she was not angry; in fact, she was even a bit flattered. The old Anna, perhaps, would have been hurt and hysterical, but she had changed and she knew it. Since Wednesday, she had made up her mind not to do without anything as integral to her happiness as sex ... and if Leonard wouldn't offer her satisfaction at home, then she'd just find it elsewhere! And her husband be damned!
Anna found herself being eased into an armchair just as the film began. It was projected on a doubled sheet hung from the arched doorway between the living room and the dining room, and as it flickered into full-color life, she saw that it was from Denmark and quite professionally done. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but it certainly was not this ... the two girls were beautiful, obviously models or actresses of some sort, and they had set out on a bike ride through beautiful Copenhagen. There was no sound or titles, but the action was simple and obvious enough. After a couple of seconds, they arrived at a big townhouse and went in. Inside there were two men, one bearded, with expensive-looking cameras, and the girls quickly stripped down and began to pose in awkward angles designed to give the cameramen an unimpeded view of their nakedness.
There was a giggle of laughter from a young woman on Anna's left, someone about her own age. The girl's escort, probably her husband, a, tall handsome young man with longish sideburns, whispered something in her ear and she giggled again, louder this time, and grabbed him affectionately between the legs. Anna was fascinated ... she couldn't decide which show was better, the one on the screen or the one in real life a few feet away! She heard the metallic sound of a zipper and saw the girl's head nestle down into the man's lap and then begin to slowly move up and down as they both watched the movie ... only when her head moved upward could Anna see that she had his cock in her mouth! She was lewdly sucking it while they watched the action on the screen!
Anna looked back at the movie, embarrassed at having intruded on their privacy, but she caught herself glancing back occasionally as the action heated up on the makeshift screen. Soon there were three women sucking cock-two on the screen and one for real just to her left, and Anna found she was unconsciously squirming against the seat cushion. Her panties felt damp and sticky between her legs and she knew she was getting "turned-on"; she wished fervently that Leonard were here, that it could be her own husband who answered this growing hunger between her thighs. But she knew he wouldn't come. This would probably be the last straw for both of them, but she felt strangely relieved, as if it was hopeless to struggle to keep their marriage afloat.
"Pretty hot stuff, huh?" someone whispered in her ear. She turned to face him. It was not anyone she knew, a nice-looking sort of guy with brown wavy hair, kind of Mediterranean-looking but not greasy or too dark. "I picked it up in Denmark on my last cruise. I'm in the Merchant Marine. My name's Dick."
Anna nodded her head. She could think of nothing to say except her name, words somehow seeming inappropriate when this kind of obscene thing was going on right before their eyes. The action on the screen had reached the boiling point, so wildly explicit that Anna was almost afraid to watch ... every frame was closer, more detailed, than the one before, and the whole doorway was filled with bold flickering images of naked, lust-hardened cocks and pinkly clasping vaginas. She had never seen anything like it!
Dick handed her a drink and she took a large swallow without tasting it first; it burned down her throat like molten lava and she coughed.
"It's a special punch Jake makes up ... I think he uses battery acid for a base," the dark-haired man now sitting on the arm of her chair joked. She looked back at the man and woman on her left and nearly shrieked in astonishment ... they were both naked now and lying head-to-toe on the sofa, his lust-thickened cock still in her ovaled mouth and his own head in between her opening-and-closing thighs!
Someone turned on a stereo somewhere and the room filled with the orchestrated sound of older Beatles's tunes, a seeming compromise aimed at the twenty-year age differences in the room. Anna felt Dick's strange hands against her back, fingertips caressing along the curve of her spine. She heard the rustle of her dress being unzipped and she pulled away instinctively, but when she looked around, there was no one in the room still fully clothed. Everyone was either naked or undressing, and she closed her eyes in resignation. After all, she knew what to expect when she came here, didn't she? Before she knew it, the young blonde wife was naked to the waist and this man whom she'd never seen until a few minutes ago was eagerly fondling her tingling breasts. She offerd no resistance as he whisperingly urged her down onto the carpeted floor, for the room was filled now with the gruntings of nakedly entwined couples. Dick was out of his clothes quickly and when they dropped to the floor, he brought her to her knees unceremoniously. There was no foreplay, no teasing, just the stiff relentless insistence of hard, virile cock. Her fingers reached back and found the long fleshy hardness of his lust-inflated penis as he mounted her dog-style. She stroked his pulsing member excitedly as the naked action of the porno movie flickered on and on above her head. Quickly, painlessly, he entered her, and she was surprised to discover that she was so well-lubricated that his good-sized cock slithered deeply into her belly on the first forward lunge.
"Mmmmmmmmmm," Anna murmured softly as the music drowned out the lascivious sounds of lovemaking all around her. "Fuck me hard, Dick, real hard!"
Leonard was switching off the office lights to leave, though he knew he could not go home while Anna was away at that party. Probably he would just drive around until he was too tired to handle the wheel and then go home alone. Whatever tomorrow would bring would be hard enough to face in the light of day. There was no sense in planning for it tonight. Divorce was an ugly word and never pleasant for anyone, but he knew now it was inevitable. There was nothing left between them now, what little they had left had been torn from them when Anna went to that party alone. Lewd images of his wife naked with dozens of men tortured his thoughts, though he tried not to think of her at all.
A noise disturbed his unpleasant thoughts and he looked up to see the cleaning woman, still far across the empty expanse of desks, pointing excitedly to the front door of the terminal office. Leonard made a motion with his hands that indicated he would see to it and hurried to the wood-paneled reception corridor to see who it was. Probably some trucker with a problem or a night man from the loading platforms, though any difficulties they had were usually solved through the night foreman.
He switched on the outside lights and opened the door, feeling rather foolish that he had not looked through the window first. What if it was a robbery? But what was of value in here? Nothing but some papers and office equipment.
But if it was a thief, it was an odd one. Outside on the concrete steps was a short, gray-haired woman of about fifty, stooped with premature age and wrinkled from hard work. Or hard living. "Where's that pea-brained ox that runs this place?" she demanded.
Leonard was tempted to tell her the truth,.but he did not want an old woman's death on his conscience. "He's gone home, ma'am. I'm his assistant. Could I help you?"
She looked him over suspiciously. "You look kinda' young, but I guess you'll have to do. I wanna know how come he sent that good for nothin' ex-husband of mine so much money! He ain't paid me a cent o' child support in two years and now he's out paintin' the town red, white and blue!"
"I'm afraid I don't understand, Mrs...."
"Taylor, Mrs. Luke Taylor. Ex-Mrs. Taylor, that is. And the truth is that Luke got a check in the mail from your company. He ain't worked here in over two years; hell, he ain't worked nowhere in two years. And now he's filthy rich with a pocket full o' money! If anybody ought to be getting money in the mail, it's me! I'm the one with the houseful o' younguns!"
"I still don't quite follow you. You say he got a paycheck in the mail and he doesn't work here, is that right?" A faint glimmer of an idea was beginning to take root deep in his brain and his four years of accounting training was urging it into something he could get his teeth into.
"That's what I said, young man. And what's more, Annie Mae Armstrong's ol' man got one too. I seen her at the grocery store this very night and she tol' me herself. What's goin' on out here? You people taken leave o' your senses?"
Leonard quickly mentally scanned the events of the last few days. Certainly, that phone call from the home office ... they sent the payroll out directly because I told them it would be all right! Jake's been so busy with his other affairs that he hasn't even noticed, I'll bet. Still, it could be an error in Maryland.
"Mrs. Taylor, I'll check into it first thing in the morning. I'm sure it was just some bookkeeping error," he said officiously. "But I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't say anything about it to anyone else until we can clear it up, okay?"
She eyed him again, even more suspiciously this time. "Well, all right, but just remember me the next time you got some damn fool notion about handing out free money, 'ya here?"
He stood in the doorway and waited until she climbed in a dilapidated old pickup truck. There was a boy of about sixteen behind the wheel and he spun gravel as he swung the old truck onto the highway. Leonard could hear the old woman cursing him as they drove away.
It cost him five dollars and less than five minutes to get the pass key to Jake's private office on the pretense of needing some docking reports. And it took him less than a half-hour to find what he needed. Like most criminals, Jake Ralston had left behind a clear, easily-followed trail, and Leonard was laughing out loud as he unlocked the secretarial pool door and turned on the office copier.
He felt better than he had felt in weeks, strangely light-headed and confident again, and finally, he knew what it was that his life had lost. He had his self-respect back again. He would not have to be ordered around like an office boy any longer; he was here to be trained for management and that was precisely what he would be from now on ... management!
Even the anguished mental picture of his wife fucking Jake Ralston seemed less burning now, for he knew somehow that everything was going to work itself out. He knew all at once that he had painfully neglected her, that he had acted like a little boy when she needed a man ... and the potent glow of self-confident manhood between his legs told him that even that would be no problem from this moment on.