Chapter 4
Frank Trumble, a tall, slender man in his mid-forties and a successful real estate broker in Shale Canyon, brought up the name of Jan Arlen when he, with his two compatriots, were walking toward the clubhouse from the eighteenth green. The conversation, as usual, had been following its customary vein ... their female conquests of the past, near-past, and hopeful future. They were lechers of position in the wealthy, suburban community, philandering professional men whose ego demanded that they boast of their infidelities to one another, certain that their respective, social-minded wives of too many years would not be an appreciative audience.
"I'll tell you one thing, she's the most luscious creature this town has seen in the dozen years we've been here," Frank Trumble said, a sly grin tugging at his thin-lipped mouth. "Of course, Helen probably wouldn't agree with me, but then she seldom does on anything."
Gus Edwards, a big, heavy-set man with a shock of premature white hair, red-veined cheeks and liquor-tainted grey-eyes, chuckled in response. Whenever the real estate broker mentioned his thirty-five year old, red-headed wife, the big man couldn't help but secretly think how little his friend knew about his chosen mate. Not only was she a well-built bitch, but she was the best fuck of their whole damned crowd, and he ought to know ...
"She's a doll, all right, but Jenny tells me she's one of these women's lib advocates," Harry Evans, a fat and bald, forty-seven year old attorney and local political figure put in. "From what I read about those broads, you might as well try to make it with a nun."
Again, Gus Edwards chuckled. He could appreciate that comparison, having been raised and steeped in the faith; nevertheless, such remarks invariably rankled him. He glanced sharply over at the shorter fat man who was grinning at his own quip. A hell of a lot that tub-of-shit wife of his knew about woman's lib or anything else. She was too taken up with her women's clubs and the goddamned wine-bottle to make an intelligent statement. Besides, she was probably pissed because she couldn't get to her. Hadn't Mavis told him several times that the fat, buggy-eyed bitch was always trying to get a hand on her?
"Doesn't your boy take piano lessons from Janice Arlen, Gus?" Frank Trumble asked as they neared the clubhouse.
"Yeah," the dentist nodded, "and he seems to be doing pretty well."
"Hell, that's not what I'm getting at, man," the broker stretched his thing lipped smile. "Seems as if that ought to give you reason to pay her a little visit ... you know, to discuss his progress, or some other such line of crap."
"And have Mavis get wind of it?" Gus grunted, tossing him a disgusted look. "I doubt like hell if she'd buy my taking a sudden interest in Dickie's music lessons as a likely story. That wife of mine's got a keen head, Frank. And I like to keep things as peaceful as I can at home."
"You mean, she doesn't trust you as far as she could throw a bull, is that it, Gus?" Harry Evans added with a snigger.
"Well, let's just say that what she doesn't know for fact isn't about to upset the castle. She can think a lot of things, but being able to prove them is another story," the big man replied with a smug expression.
"Well ... I'd still give a sizeable commission to get into the gorgeous Miss Arlen's hot little panties," Frank Trumble said, his dark-eyes lustfully glittering with his thoughts. "Christ, what a lovely, tight-looking ass she's got! I saw her down-town shopping the other day and walked around with a hard-on for two hours after."
"Why didn't you go home and throw a quickie into Helen? Harry Evans suggested, lewdly smirking, his own conception of fucking Frank Trumble's wife a stimulating vision he'd privately nourished for years.
"Ha ... you don't know my wife very well, Harry. The nookie stuff went out right after the honeymoon all those years ago," Frank said with a shake of his head. "I think probably that's the advantage of these wife-swapping arrangements the young people go for now days. You know, it's all agreed on and understood. And if a fellow suddenly feels the urge, like in the middle of the day, he gives one of the wives a call, sets it up and pays her a visit. You know, kind of a share and share alike program with everybody profiting."
"Yeah ... I can just see Jenny going for that," Evans commented as he parked the golf-cart he'd been pulling, while the others did the same.
"She might surprise you, Harry," Gus Edwards said, winking at Frank Trumble, and imagining the heavy-set woman calling up one of the wives for herself.
"I've always said that nothing she could do would surprise me, Gus," the lawyer answered, "but that, by God would! When it comes to sex-desire, I'm afraid poor Jenny was short-changed ... "
"Aw, come on, Harry. All she needs is a little variety," Frank Trumble said, picking up Gus' taunting and winking back at the big man. "Tell you what, why don't you ask her when you go home? In fact, we'll ask all of them! Hell, that's just what we need ... a good swap club. Maybe, we can even talk the Arlen doll into joining us! Damn, just imagine throwing your cock into that, Harry ... ?"
"You've got rocks in your head, Frank!" Harry Evans exclaimed, looking at his friend and trying to read the smile the other was working at suppressing.
"Hell, just think of all the whore-money you'd save, Harry?" Gus put in, pretending at seriousness, while at the same time he wondered if Frank Trumble was actually putting out feelers. Forgetting Evans and his repulsive, fat-assed wife, a little swap-party between the Trumble's and themselves wouldn't be such a bad deal now and then. It'd do away with all the secret meetings in L.A. he and Helen went through at least once a month, and certainly Mavis needed something to spur her ass out of the doldrums it had settled into the past few years ...
"Sure, why don't you just ask Jenny how she feels about it, Harry?" Frank Trumble went on, enjoying pulling the other's leg, even as the more provocative thought of crawling between the attractive Mavis Edward's shapely, wide-spread thighs caused lustful sensations to begin gnawing at his loins. Yeah, why not ... ? Helen might just listen to the idea too ... ! After all, neither one of them was getting much out of their fucking these days ... in fact, hadn't been for a damned long time! Maybe this was what they needed, a little agreed upon innovation to spice things up! Hell, it could be the answer for the four of them, and as things developed maybe they could promote another couple or two? Damn ... it was just too bad that Janice Arlen wasn't married ...
"Come on, my turn to buy the drinks," Harry Evans said with a shake of his bald head. "The way you guys are talking, you need it, too!"
Both Gus and Frank laughed loudly as they exchanged good-natured back-slaps, while simultaneously their brains continued to independently cultivate the lewd program they had implanted in each other's mind.
It was inevitable, they both knew, that they would discuss it later ... alone ...
"All I know is what I hear, girls," Trumble said, sipping at her scotch-soda and puffing at a cigarette. She sat with her well-shaped legs crossed, the mini-skirt hardly covering the smooth, rounded flesh of her naked thighs as she gazed across the living room at her two golf-widow friends. "They say she has no male callers ... female either, for that matter, no one except her students or their parents, and that she's seldom seen out anywhere other than shopping."
"So ... ? What are you getting at, Helen?" Mavis Edwards questioned, feeling some ridiculous urge to protect the reputation of her son's music teacher. She, too, nursed a scotch-soda and smoked a cigarette, her slacks-covered legs stretched out before where she sat on the davenport. She couldn't help the narrowing of her ash-rimmed eyes that were near-glowering at the mention of Janice Arlen's respectability. Not that she gave a damn about the girl personally, but she was Dickie's music teacher which made the girl a part of her own well-ordered domain, however remotely connected, and to Mavis' way of thinking, a reflection upon herself.
"Well, it is just a little unusual, don't you think, Mavis?" Helen said dragging deep from her cigarette, then letting out the smoke as she talked. "I mean, a lovely young girl like her with no husband or boyfriends ... ?"
"Maybe she just dislikes sex," Mavis retorted, preferring to get off the subject. "Some women do, I understand."
"That's not quite natural either, is it?" the fetching red-head pursued, aware that she had touched a tender spot with her chestnut-haired friend. God, she thought, it was no wonder Gus ran around the way he did; she was so outwardly straight-laced and possessive ... and lousy in bed, too, according to her now-and-then lover.
"Well, from what I've heard, she's one of those women's Kb champions, and to my way of thinking she can't be all bad," Jenny Evans put in, following her statement with a sip of port and crossing her fat, nylon-covered legs. She ran her tongue over her thick, red-rouged lips, the glint in her small dark eyes almost sparkling as she looked down her parrotish nose at each girl in turn. "Frankly, I'm all for their cause and think that more of us women should be."
"Which has nothing to do with what we're talking about, Jenny," Helen Trumble said, pointedly adding: "except that it helps to underline a more unsavory aspect. Isn't that group ridden with lesbians?"
Mavis sensed her own cheeks blushing along with Jenny's but purely in sympathy. My God, what a thing to say and right in the woman's own house! The remark hadn't been necessary, even though the both of them had discussed and concluded that their over-weight friend probably leaned that way. But that was a part of Helen Trumble's too often cruel and thoughtless character, and the part that Mavis very much disliked.
"I doubt that!" Jenny snapped, recovering herself. "But even if it is so, there are worse things I can think of!"
"Such as ...?" Helen prodded, managing to display her usual unruffled tone.
"Such as any married woman being unfaithful to her husband," Jenny replied, her own voice smoothing into a new calmness. "That, to me, is the least of all forgivable acts ... unless of course, the husband is playing around. Then, I take the woman's lib viewpoint. No double standards. What's sauce for the goose, etcetera ... "
There was more between them, but Mavis lost the details momentarily as her mind flooded with vivid memories of her shopping tour in L.A., the afternoon before. He'd been a young man and she'd let him pick her up in the hotel lounge where she was having lunch. He'd claimed to be a salesman, said his name was Mike, and had bought her a half-dozen drinks before inviting her up to his suite. Of course, she had gone; why else did she go into the city every few weeks? God, she was only thirty-eight and a long ways from being sexually over the hill ... yet, it was absolutely nothing anymore with Gus! And Mike ... he'd been such a wonderful lover ... young and handsome ... his long, thick cock racing in and out of her needing pussy like a hardened greased firebrand, taking her again and again into misty clouds of blissful ecstasy!
"What's your opinion, Mavis?" Helen was directing to her, interrupting her erotic reverie.
"I'm sorry, girls ... I ... I guess my mind was elsewhere for a minute," she apologized, leaning forward. "What was it you asked?"
"You haven't been listening ... ?" Helen questioned, her eyes widening. "Well, to repeat the gist of bur conversation, Mrs. Edwards, Helen and I are both of the opinion that Miss Arlen should be looked into. After all, she is working with our young people ... your own son, for example, Mavis, and it seems that we should know more about her. We, our husbands and ourselves, have quite an investment in the Canyon, and it seems to me that we should protect it from any distasteful element ... don't you agree?"
"Why ... why yes, of course, Helen," Mavis answered, confused. "But I don't quite see what you're getting at with Janice Arlen? You say distasteful ... ?
"Naturally, I don't mean that quite as harshly as it sounds," the fetching red-head hastened to add. "I'm merely suggesting that we learn a bit more regarding our voluptuous neighbor. After all, she is single, young and beautiful, and we all have husbands who are nothing short of being men. Now, if that isn't clear enough, I'll say that I, for one, intend to protect my investment ... which is the Mr. Frank Trumble, husband and sometimes playboy, though he's not aware that I know about the latter. In short, I believe it would be wise if you girls joined forces with me. After all, dolls, you've got as much to lose as I have ... "
"I think she's right, Mavis," Jenny Evans agreed, draining the wine from her glass and pouring again out of the half-empty decanter. Her eyes had begun to gleam as she spoke. "It's not that I'm worried so much about Harry. God, he's just about at the end of his rope ... and that's looking more feeble everyday, but we do have the young people she is teaching, like your Dickie, to consider. Now, my idea is for one of us to pay her a little visit ... a social call more or less, and see what we can learn. Personally, I have the time and would be quite willing ... "
"Wait," Helen interrupted, holding up her hand. "The fellows just drove in. Let's hold this conversation until tomorrow afternoon. We can get together at my house if you like ... ?"
"Say about two-ish?" the plump woman quickly suggested.
"Fine," Helen replied. "How about you Mavis?"
"Very well ... I'll be there ... but I still don't get the reasoning behind it all ... "
"Shhhhh ... here they come ... "