Chapter 4
The October day, having begun with a hot humid breath of Indian summer, had suddenly been overcome with a case of autumn melancholy, and the morning heat had degenerated into a full crashing thunderstorm, complete with lightning and gully-washing rain that made even listening to the radio impossible.
Anna Melton sat alone in the tiny apartment she shared with her husband and son; Richie, having tired of his mother's amusements, had gone for a nap and Anna sat wearily on the edge of her bed. Their bed, the one that bore the promise of a rich, full married life as they once shared ... but now sat as a sulking monument to their failure. Anna shook her head and laughed silently to herself; the storm was appropriate somehow, for this was a day that did not deserve to be cloaked in the warm mantle of summer. This was a day that teased with the menacing chill of winter. And it was indeed winter in Anna's heart.
Those carefree days on the campus, filled with spontaneous merriment and lovemaking, seemed as faraway as the dim memories of infancy. Gone, somehow, eaten up by this God-forsaken place that might as well have been darkest Africa for all it offered her. Her mind boggled at the mere prospect of another nine months in this hell-hole. How could she possibly hope to keep her marriage afloat that long? What, if anything, would be left to salvage after so long?
Could she dare to even dream of those warmer days? Was there even the faintest glimmer of hope that Leonard could weather another thirty-six weeks under that awful man's crushing pressure?
Anna lay back on her side of the bed, her head resting on her pillow; her housecoat parted as she allowed herself to fall back on the mattress. Her eyes were closed, and she could feel her lips tremble.
She had successfully fought off the too-easy escape of blaming her son's birth for her crumbling marriage; that was a cowardly way out, and she knew it. Now, though the circumstances were certainly different, she knew she must avoid blaming Jake Ralston, despicable as he was, for the daily-growing rift between her and Leonard. It was their own problem, one they had somehow forged, and it was up to them to find some solution ... or go their separate ways.
Her hands made their way down over the slight tiny bulge of her belly; it was as flat as a table-top when they had married, and even now, after a baby, it hardly bulged at all. She had a good figure and she knew it. "Why not be proud of it?" she had often asked herself. Good firm breasts that showed no signs of having ever nourished a baby and high, tight buttocks with no wrinkles or fatty dimples ... a good body, one that any man should want ... any man!
She cursed herself roundly for the thought and did nothing to stop the almost-automatic shifting of her fingertips to the fleecy light "vee" of pubic hair that tufted over the top 'of her bikini-cut panties. Oh damn! I don't want to do this again! I don't want to!
But, even as she struggled to convince just herself, her own fingers were betraying her innocence by removing her sheer, baby-blue panties and pushing them down the smoothness of her showgirl legs, legs that had been good enough to carry around the college colors at the football games and now ... well, now could not arouse a spark of real passion in even her husband.
She blinked back the stinging moistness of her tears, but she knew in her heart this was the only way ... going through perhaps another week or more without her man would be unbearably hurtful. She had to ... she had to!
Her fingertips eased along the smooth insides of her naked thighs, her nails lightly brushing her own sensitive tingling flesh ... and then the crevice where her legs joined her body, the warmth of that secret inner fold ... now the pouting, blood-filled ridges of vaginal pinkness ... Oh God! I can't help it! I just can't!"
Anna had managed to make it through the morning and into the afternoon, but now she could stand the nagging heat of her unfulfilled passion no longer. From both sides, her fingers caressed their way over the hair-covered lips of her vagina, through the light-blonde curls of her pubic hair, and then electrically along the moist heated furrow of her cunt, not pausing until her own fingertips lightly fondled the shuddering pearl-like node of her clitoris. She moaned aloud from the electrifying contact of her own fingers against the incited heat of her vaginal flesh ... it would not take long this time, she whispered to herself. Last night she had been so close to cumming, so close, and now this! Oh Leonard, this is for you to do, not me! God help me!
Shivering with fervent arousal, she rubbed the magic node of pussy flesh like Aladdin's lamp, only there would be no genie for her, just the momentary satiation of her passion, enough to get her through another few days of loneliness. She whined in rhythm with her deep breathing, almost a tune dancing on her lips as she frantically toyed with her quivering vaginal slit, rolling the oily marble of her clitoris between her fingers like a prized jewel ... just a little more!
Her buttocks' cheeks clenched and unclenched now in time with the moaning cry of hungry desire that passed her trembling lips ... her hips lifted from the mattress in an involuntary arch ... a little bit more.-
"Aaaaawwwww...." A brief gasping cry burst from her throat, and she continued the frantic pace of her fingering a bit longer; shudder after shudder of self-induced orgasm rippled through her heated flesh. Her lushly-ripened breasts shimmered in ecstasy, and her nipples poked sensitively against the still-buttoned top of her housecoat. Her hips settled back against the mattress, and her hands fell limply between her thighs; she could feel the perspiration running in rivulets between her legs, though the temperature had dropped lower still in the face of an autumnal storm front. It was only then that she heard the phone ringing.
At least I didn't have to face that pig all afternoon and listen to his innuendos and crude remarks, thought Leonard Melton as he held the telephone to his ear and waited for his wife to answer. It was enough that I had to witness the utter humiliation and shame on that poor girl's face when she left Ralston's office. Goddamn him to hell, what a monster he is! And then to strut through the bookkeeping section with everybody eyeing him and slip Clara an envelope. Hell, I even heard during coffee-break that he'd put twenty dollars in it! What kind of people are these? Clara selling off her own brother's child for two sawbucks and Jake Ralston, a married man, lowering himself to ...!
"Hello." It was Anna's voice, and he could hear her breathing hard.
"Hi, honey ... where were you-outside? You sound all out of breath."
"Uh, yeah, I was getting some clothes in before they got wet," she lied unhesitatingly. Lying was something that seemed to come easier as their marriage crumbled about them.
"Oh, I'm sorry ... I just called to say I might be a little late. Jake drove up to Fayetteville for some parts, and he asked me to take some papers over to his house. I'll leave a little early and drive out to Crabtree Meadow before I come home. With all the rain, the River Road might be flooded out, so it could be late before I get home."
"Sure, honey; I understand. But why couldn't Jake just take the papers with him when he left?"
"I don't really understand myself. It was something about not wanting to have them with him in the pickup because they were important. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm not about to argue...."
I'll bet you aren't, she thought. You'd never argue with Jake Ralston in a million years!...." At least it means a chance to get out of here early. And maybe I'll stop off at the country club for a round or two of golf."
"Yeah! You do that. And I'll explain to Richie why he doesn't get any baby food for a few days."
"Oh, honey, I was just kidding ... well, I have to run if I'm going to get caught up. Bye."
Every time I talk to her, she sounds farther and farther away, as if we were literally drifting apart. Damn, there must be some way out of this before it's too late. Two intelligent people don't just stand aside while their marriage falls to pieces, do they?
The buzzer on the interphone interrupted his soliloquy, and for once, he was delighted; this time it could not be Ralston pestering him from somewhere in the terminal.
"Mr. Melton, it's the Maryland office calling for Mr. Ralston. They said they could talk to you instead." It was the voice of Priscilla Ledbetter, ABC's Pine Junction switchboard operator for more years than anyone could remember. She had been here when Jake Ralston arrived, and would probably be here when he left.
"Yes, I'll talk to them," said Leonard officiously. Miss Ledbetter had a way of talking down to him as she did to anyone with less than ten years seniority.
Leonard grabbed for his pen and note pad as Miss Ledbetter put the call through efficiently; he strongly suspected she was remaining on the line in case there was some foul play she could catch him in and run snickering to Ralston. But if she was indeed eavesdropping, it was a wasted effort. It was only a secretary from the accounting section of the home office with a routine call about the monthly payroll; they had encountered a delay in preparing the checks this month and wanted to know whether to mail the checks directly to save time or send them down to the terminal manager as usual for disbursement.
Leonard gave it only a moment's thought and then advised them to mail the checks directly; it would save at least a day as mail from Maryland was delivered almost as quickly as local mail, thanks to the post office's usual idiosyncratic service. He made a note of it on his desk calendar and then forgot the call altogether. There was too much work left to finish before he ran Jake's errands for him to worry about whether he made the right decision.
Time would indeed tell, and though Leonard could not have known it, that routine telephone call would be one he would never forget!