Chapter 11
RICHARD POMEROY SIGHED IN RELIEF.
Trask lighted a cigarette and sat on the arm of the couch. Susannah was stretched out on the same couch, smoking. The shirt that she wore was unbuttoned. She hadn't changed her clothing yet. They were in her living room and she had just told her husband how Trask had saved her.
"Why didn't you pay them?" she asked. "But I did," he said.
"They said you didn't pay. That's why they were going to hurt me."
"I left the money just as they said."
Trask smoked and said nothing.
"Anyway, the main thing is that you are safe. I don't care about the money."
"If it hadn't been for Pete they might have killed me," Susannah said. "If you had any idea what the two men were doing to me when he shot them!"
Her husband looked unhappy.
"I suppose we had better call the police," he said.
"I'll have to tell them what those men were doing to me, won't I?" she asked, thinking how much fun it would be to watch the police reaction when she went into detail.
"I'd rather you didn't call them until I'm gone," Trask said. "I don't like cops."
Whatever you like. But...."
"I must clean your face first," Susannah said. Trask was bruised around the eyes, but not badly. All of Moose's head shots had landed high.
"And you deserve a reward," she said. She got up from the couch, letting the shirt fall open farther. She walked out of the room.
"I'll gladly...."
"I don't want a reward," Trask said.
"You deserve something," Susannah said, coming back with a wash cloth and towel and a basin of so;; and water. She began to wipe at Trask's face, leaning over him. The sweater was torn down the front and the shirt was open and her breasts hung naked before Trask.
"You really should put something else on," Pomeroy said.
She looked at the bruises critically. Pomeroy knew that there was no way to judge her reactions and that she was quite liable to do just the opposite of what he asked just to be perverse, but he didn't like to see her bare breasts so very near to Trask's face.
"Darling," he said. "You really should put some clothing on. You're quite uncovered."
She laughed.
"It's nothing that Peter hasn't seen before. I was perfectly naked when he rescued me. And before that he saw what they were doing to me. So it's rather silly to start being modest about my body now."
Pomeroy grimaced. Susannah looked at him. As she turned her breasts swung slightly. She was thinking about what had happened and it excited her. At the time she had been a little afraid that they would really hurt her, but now that it was over she didn't even regret it. It was a rather thrilling experience to think back on. And she wanted to increase the thrill by telling her husband about it. That always made it better. When he knew that she was having love affairs with other men it always made the affairs more exciting, and she knew that it would be the same way with this.
"Look at my nipples," she said. She held them out to her husband, standing right in front of Trask. Trask pursed his lips. "They squeezed them so hard," she said. "They're all swollen." She rubbed them a little. "And that wasn't all. They both did things to me at the same time. Thai hurt."
"Stop it!" Pomeroy said. "For heaven's sake, stop it!"
"Don't you care what they did to me?" she asked. "I'm sure that Peter cares. Don't you?"
Trask looked amused. This was quite a woman, he thought. She really ought to have been whipped, but that was beside the point, she was still quite a woman.
"See, Peter?" she said. She turned and held her breasts out to him. "Your face is bruised and my nipples are bruised and my husband doesn't care. But you care, don't you. Touch them, Peter. See how swollen they are."
Trask hesitated. If her husband had said anything then, had made any protest, Trask would have walked out. But Pomeroy just stood watching with his mouth drawn into a straight line, and these lovely breasts were so near.
He touched them.
The nipples seemed to burst in his fingers, swelling and growing.
"Kiss them, Peter. Kiss them and make them well. They belong to you because you saved me."
Peter took her nipples, one after the other, and kissed them gently.
"I'm going to give you your reward myself, Peter," Susannah said. She looked at her husband. "I'm going to give Peter anything that he wants."
Pomeroy opened his mouth to speak; closed it with out a word. He stared. He felt helpless.
"Let's go into the bedroom, Peter."
"All right," he said.
She took his hand and led him across the room. At the door she paused. Her husband was standing in the same place.
"Richard, you come too. I want you to see what Peter does to me I want you to watch."
He came. As if he were a puppet, a robot, he obeyed her command and followed them into the bedroom. She led Trask to the bed and Pomeroy stood by the door.
"Let me take these filthy clothes off," she said. She stripped them off quickly and stood naked. Her body looked none the worse for what had been done to her.
"Now your clothes," she said. He started to move. "No, let me," she said.
Her fingers began working over his buttons and zippers, working quickly and surely. When his shirt came off his body was bruised in many places from Moose's punches. Susannah dropped to her knees in front of him and began to kiss each bruise on his body. As she kissed him her hands worked and his clothes came loose. They dropped and he stepped out of them. She continued to kiss him while she tugged his underwear down. Her lips worked, finding new bruises. And then she paused to glance at Pomeroy. He stood as though carved from stone.
But he was watching.
Susannah smiled at him. And then she turned her face to Trask and her lips parted and caressed him. Trask let his shoulders drop back. Her hands ran up and down his legs and hips, around to his buttocks. She continued.
Then she leaned back and smiled at Trask. She got off her knees and sat on the bed. She pulled him to her and her lips flared. Just for a moment this time, and then she lay back with her body on the bed and her legs on the floor, arched upward. She caressed herself with her hands. She invited Trask to her with her body.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed. Her hands were still moving, and he slid to her. The length of their bodies pressed together. Her feet flew off the floor.
Pomeroy moved forward a few steps.
Trask's head was beside hers, face down against the bed. She looked over his shoulder. She looked at Pomeroy. She looked very happy. She reached down and her husband saw her hand move to guide Trask. And then the two bodies began.
They began slowly. Susannah moved, trying to draw him closer. Bit by bit the tempo increased, as they drew near the peak. They began to beat themselves frantically. Susannah was moaning continuously, Trask was grunting with the exertion.
Pomeroy whined softly.
And then they were both quivering and falling from the heights, and Trask let his body relax, and sank down.
And even then she looked at her husband.
Even then she smiled at him.
Trask left after that. Pomeroy said nothing to him. Trask drove to the diner and picked up the box that he had left there. He told Block that he was leaving town.
"Trouble?" Block asked.
"Nothing worth mentioning," Trask said. "Just a little gamble I took."
They said good-bye. Trask left. Jeff Block thought that Trask was a strange guy. He was glad, for Trask'.; sake, that he had not gotten into serious trouble with Arnold's boys.
Susannah took a warm bath and went to bed. They had decided not to notify the police. Not until the next day, at least. When she was in bed her husband came in and sat down beside her.
"Angry?" she said, and he could tell by her tone that she didn't much care.
"No," he said. And he wasn't. He was a bit stunned, but he felt no anger. He had always known what his wife was like. He put his hand on her.
"I had to reward him, you see."
"It's all right," he said.
"After what the other two did to me, it didn't really seem like much."
"Let's not talk about it."
"Pete was good though. He was even stronger than the strong man who raped me."
"Please, can I sleep with you?"
She looked at him long enough to make him feel very uncomfortable, and then she said, "Of course."
Later, when he was finished, she said to him, "I'm terrible. While you were making love to me I was pretending that you were Peter. Isn't that terrible?"
He didn't answer.
"Of course, you aren't as good as Peter."
And why, he wondered, don't I hate her for this? Why do I feel only desire and no hate? It was a good question, but he could not answer it and contented himself with the thought that she had been so shocked by her experience that she didn't know what she was doing or saying; that in the morning she would be sorry, or perhaps would not even remember, which would be better. And he told himself that the shocks of the last few days were so great that it might change her.
She might never want another man again, he thought, as he lay beside her in the dark bedroom. But it didn't turn out that way, of course.