Chapter 3
At about that same time, Inez Read West, daughter of Thompson Read and wife of George West, took off her bra and stepped up to a full-length mirror on a closet door and looked at herself.
Was she a woman whom a man would want to give a loving?
She didn't think she looked so bad, at least she wasn't quite the ugly duckling she'd been as a young girl. Men did look at her sometimes and even madf an occasional pass, though she figured that that was for the same reason that they'd done so when she was much younger.
She had been perfectly aware then that their interest was only passing and couldn't be deepened or extended. As she'd heard one boy say, "She'd be great if you could make love to her with her head in a paper bag.
She often felt that men still regarded her in the same way.
Rationally, she really didn't think that she was that bad any longer. She didn't claim to be any raving beauty, but her father was quite right in saying that her face showed character. It suggested personality, too, more personality than she actually had.
Her hair was jet-black, perfectly straight, and she generally wore it drawn straight back. She thought that emphasized her eyes which weren't really too bad, she hoped. True, they were narrow, dark, and piercing. A catty woman would have said they were beady but that wasn't really fair. Her eyebrows were a trifle short but high, emphatic and very pointed at the outer ends, rather exotic if you wanted to look at them that way. She had a bad habit of frowning, of course: she almost always carried a little frown that made her look both hurt and mean. But her cheek bones were high, her jawline was good, and she had a fine complexion.
No, she thought, she really didn't look so awful.
But in her heart she couldn't believe that she looked so wonderful either.
Her body was a different matter. As that boy had said, "She'd be great-if...." She wished that her body and only her body counted in matters of love.
She slipped out of her white silk panties and, completely naked, continued looking at herself. Yes, what she saw was good. Her white breasts, dark-rose tipped, were mounted high on her deep rib cage. Her ribs narrowed to a thin waist which flared to well-rounded hips. Twisting, as she looked at herself, she saw that her buttocks, as white as her breasts, were perfect bowls. And the swell and taper of her thighs and calves were just about perfect. She kept her body in good condition, and she could hardly wish for a more luscious figure. She'd been told that her name, Inez, which she hated, meant lovely maiden; and in her figure, at least, she lived up to her name.
Then why didn't her husband want to love her more often?
She knew the answer to that. Or rather she knew all the answers.
Right now he was in the bathroom, as naked as she, and if possible she intended to get him to give her a loving. A good hard loving. Tonight she needed him, she needed him badly, she needed him no matter how he felt about her or she about him.
But would he have anything to give her?
Every week end they went to either the country club or to the Tri-Compass club, and frequently they went to both. As far as she could tell, he did little or no fooling around at the Tri-Compass club: that would be dangerous for his position. But this evening they'd visited the country club and there, she was quite sure, he'd made contact with a number of women. Most of the people at the country club were quite respectable, but there were a number of others who were quite willing to sneak off for a little heavy petting or a fast loving.
And George, she was sure, got his share.
More than once when they'd arrived home she'd been badly in need, and he'd pretended to be too tired. She could prove nothing, but eventually she'd been forced to the conclusion that he was simply used up and played out on such occasions. He'd already given away all that he had to give.
That was one reason that he didn't love her more often.
Another was that he simply didn't care foe her.
He'd been very good to her at first. He had a rugged kind of handsomeness; he could turn on a very real charm, and she'd been pretty much swept off of her feet. He'd really seemed to care for her, and she'd cursed herself for her occasional suspicions that he was interested in her for reasons of job advancement. But such suspicions had been easy to ignore because she'd wanted to ignore them.
So she'd given up her virginity to him one night when he brought her home from the Tri-Compass club. They'd married, and he'd taught her to achieve sexual ecstasy. But her period of happiness had begun to fade long before the end of their first year together.
And before the end of the second year, ecstasy had become increasingly difficult to achieve.
The fact that he'd married her in order to advance his position at Tri-Compass had become more and more apparent to her, more and more difficult for her to deny to herself. His basic indifference had become an almost tangible thing to her.
The blow to her ego had been tremendous. When she'd thought that he was actually in love with her, she'd begun to feel more like an acceptable human being. She'd felt almost beautiful. But when she'd been forced to the conclusion that he didn't really care for her at all, she'd felt as if she were withering up. She'd felt like the most useless and unlovable human being on the face of the earth.
And that brought her to yet another reason why George didn't give her what she needed as often as she needed it.
Much as she needed and wanted loving, part of her was repelled by her husband. She didn't want to be loved by someone who didn't care for her. Many a night when she was aching for pleasure and relief from her tensions, she'd been unable to bring herself to make a demand or a request, to send up a signal, to make any kind of advance that might bring him to her arms and body.
So she'd laid silent, stifling tears, racked with need.
Why didn't she get a divorce?
There were a number of reasons for that, too.
For one thing, she knew quite well that George would fight a divorce. He would do all he could to avoid giving her grounds. A couple of times when they'd quarreled the subject of divorce had come up and George had said, a pretense, she was sure, that he didn't believe in it. Once she'd even hired a detective at considerable expense, but he'd been unable to come up with a shred of usable evidence.
George was very careful. He feared that his position at Tri-Compass depended upon his marriage to Inez, so a divorce was out of the question as far as he was concerned.
Another reason was that Inez did believe in marriage. Though she had hired that detective, she didn't believe in the easy come, easy go marriage philosophy. From the time she'd first thought that George was getting bored with her, she'd tried to keep them together as a pair, and for a long time she hadn't given up hope that their love-relationship could be revived.
Now hardly a ghost of that hope remained.
A third reason had to do with sex. Inez was not promiscuous. She had never been unfaithful to George. Sometimes in wish-dreams born of her frustration, she told herself that she was going to be unfaithful; sometimes she entertained fantasies of naked, potent studs taking off her clothes and seducing or raping her. But in her heart she knew perfectly well that she would never get beyond wish-dreams and fantasies.
Her only resource then, was George. He gave her very little and what he did give her was often unsatisfactory, lately, in fact, invariably unsatisfactory. But as long as he was with her, at least she could try.
There was an irritional but very real fear in her mind that if she were to succeed of ridding herself of her husband she'd be unable to find another male to replace him. She'd always looked with contempt on those people who had relations with a second partner before breaking off with their first, but she'd come to understand them. Cheats they were, and that was a terrible thing in her book, but some of them must have been like her in their insecurity, fearing to leave one partner until quite sure of having another.
And finally there was the fact of sheer inertia. She'd learned to live with George after a fashion. After a fashion she'd actually become used to her situation. And this led her to think, Not yet, not yet! Maybe things will change!
But she'd about accepted the fact that things were never going to change. Unless she changed them.
And meanwhile she needed a man, she needed to make love with a man.
"What's the matter? In love with yourself?"
George's bantering voice startled her. She looked around to see him emerging from the bathroom.
He was a solidly built man, only a little taller than she. Like her, he was quite tan except where his swimming trunks had covered him, and they didn't cover him there now.
She looked at him. She looked at all of him. She hardly saw him as an individual but more as a male body. She tried to keep it that way because thinking of George as a personality would repel her and make it harder for her to get the complete satifaction which she longed for.
So her eyes took in his deep chest, his muscle-ridged abdomen, his sturdy dark-haired thighs. Her gaze rested on him, and a sensual shiver went through her body. Whatever else might be said of George, he did have the hard buttocks and strong back to give him plenty of power.
He smiled a little, as if reading her thoughts.
"It's been a long day," he said. "Guess I'll hit the sack. I'm going to be asleep in about three seconds."
She'd been afraid he'd say something like that. He so often did. And she so often immediately gave up any thought of getting what she wanted.
But not tonight.
She went to him and caught his shoulders just as he was turning away and their bodies brushed together. Her skin felt sensitive and feverish.
"George...."
"Yeah?"
He pick up his pajamas from the foot of the bed, aod she pushed them out of his hand. She made him face her.
She kissed him.
She brought her body lightly against his, twisting herself against him slightly, hoping to arouse him, hoping he had something left to give her.
"Well, that's nice," he said in that noncommital way of his that she'd learned to hate.
"Kiss me, George."
Smiling, he gave her a little kiss. His hands didn't reach for her.
"Is that a kiss?" she asked. "Honey, I'm pretty tired."
Always the same old story. Always the same old disappointment.
Tears came to her eyes. She felt as if her spirit were being completely broken. And still she needed him, she needed his manliness, she needed his strength.
"Don't you ever want to love me?" she asked still clinging to his shoulders.
"Of course I do, honey-"
She let go of his right shoulder and her fingers found what she wanted.
"Then love me I" she said.
His laugh was more like a bark, a sound that he couldn't hold back
"Don't tell me that you're begging!"
His words were like a lash across her face, but still her passion didn't diminish.
"Do I have to beg?"
"I didn't mean it like that, honey-now don't cry!"
Her fingers worked eagerly on him, but he failed to respond. And that meant that he was either indifferent to her, or even repelled or that some other woman had gotten to him first.
Right now she didn't care.
"I'll beg if you want me to!"
She stood before him, her feet apart, stroking and pulling at him. She shook her body and arched toward him, trying to make them meet.
"I'll beg, but take me, George," she said desperately. "Be strong and powerful for me, George! Take me!"
Now he had a worried look as if he'd finally realized that this could be a highly critical moment for both of them.
"Honey, I just can't! You can see that I can't!
I'm too tired, Inez, I'm too beat out!"
She gave a little wail and seized one of his hands. She brought it to her legs and forced him to caress her. She felt as if she were ready to receive him if she could only get him going.
"Inez, honey, don't! Can't you see that this is no use!"
But she knew only that she was wild, wild to be taken.
She shoved him toward the bed, turning his back to it, with a strength she hadn't known she had. She pushed him., and he fell back, bouncing on the mattress on his buttocks and elbows, his feet dangling to the floor. She gave no thought to what she was going to do, something she hadn't done in years.
She moved to him and bent on one knee.
Holding him carefully, her lips touched him, and he jerked as if to pull away.
Then she was moving her head everyway she could.
At once her kiss did what her hands couldn't. He was powerful. He was ready.
And she kissed him all the harder.
Then she felt hands under her armpits. She was lifted up from him. She was literally thrown onto the bed and rolled onto her back.
"You witch!" he rasped, and then hands were sliding over her naked body.
A mouth covered and drew at one of her nipples and fingers lapped at her thighs.
He knocked her knees farther apart, and she drew them up. She felt him pressing against her right where she wanted him. The moment she'd longed for had at last arrived.
The pressure bore harder and lessened, returned harder yet and lessened, came back harder yet ... And then she had him.
She gave herself up to her sensations, clutching at him at the end of each thrust, squeezing him as he drew back from her.
Her pleasure mounted higher.
Grew stronger.
Drove her mindless.
And then she knew the time had come for the ultimate ecstasy. All she had to do was wait and let the cataclysm happen.
"Harder!" she groaned, knowing he couldn't strike harder, knowing that no man could.
She waited.
"Love me! Make-it-happen!" He cried out and stiffened.
And then she knew that he'd arrived at the summit without her. His face was strained and distorted with the sensation of release as he slid at her a dozen times or more and then gradually subsided.
The lights out and with her back to him, she tried not to weep. She told herself that if he'd only kept going a half-minute more, only a few seconds more, she would have been all right, though she knew in her heart that that wasn't true. If he'd continued to love her all night long, she still wouldn't have achieved a peak.
She took refuge in fantasy. A stranger appeared at her door one day. The moment they saw one another, they couldn't resist. He took off her clothes in spite of her protests, and then disrobed. And he was so startling, so much in need of her, that she nearly fainted. So he laid her back on a sofa, and they looked at each other, and caressed each other, and then he was taking her, taking her....
And sliding and thrusting and she was going wild, wild....
But the fantasy was useless. She remained a semi-frigid woman, alone in her bed even when her husband lay with her on the other side.
She bit her pillow and let silent tears fall in the night....
George West waited for sleep to come. That had been a close call.
From now on he had to remember to keep Inez better satisfied. Maybe from now on he should make a firm policy of loving her once a week, say on Thursday nights. That way she'd learn not to expect anything on week ends, and he'd be free and ready when they went to the country club on Friday or Saturday.
The trouble tonight, of course, had been the blonde he'd sneaked off to the parking lot with. She'd been pretty loaded, and he was always willing to take advantage of such a situation. But the ironic thing, the disgusting thing to George, was that the blonde hadn't even given him complete satisfaction. Load-ed or not, she'd resisted all of his efforts to get her to go all the way, and they'd ended up just petting to a climax and nothing more.
So here he was later with Inez, already pretty much used up, and he hadn't even had the pleasure of actually taking the girl.
Well, as things had turned out, Inez had been pretty good tonight. He suspected that she hadn't received full pleasure, but that wasn't his fault. He'd certainly kept going long enough. She could accuse him of plenty of things but not premature release.
He wondered what he'd ever seen in her, anyway.
Oh, sure, he'd married her at least partly because she was Thompson Read's daughter. He'd known that he was a good engineer and a good organizer but hardly a great one. Marrying Inez was a step up the ladder. After he'd married her he'd had to work extra hard to get ahead in order to prove that he was earning his way, but at least the way was then open to him. He'd had possibilities of advancement which hadn't been open to him, at least not much, before.
But that hadn't been his only reason for marrying her. He supposed he'd figured that she was kind of cute in an off-beat way, and certainly she'd had a terrific body. Still did, for that matter. You couldn't take that away from Inez. Even if she did no longer appeal to him.
Almost repelled him as a matter-of-fact.
He supposed that he just wasn't cut out to be a one-woman man.
Not that he got all the women that he wanted.
He didn't get nearly all of them. The main reason was simply that he had to be so careful. His father-in-law had never been any too fond of him, and if he ever let Inez get evidence for a divorce, he'd be out of Tri-Compass in a minute. And he'd have very little chance of getting up to where he was or to where he was going: into Thompson Read's shoes.
So he had to be careful. Very careful. He had to pick the women who were least apt to talk. Married women were best. They knew how to take care of themselves and keep their mouths shut.
He had to avoid blackmailers. He had to avoid women who were apt to become emotional. He wanted only fun girls.
He avoided women who had anything to do with the company. He knew that some of the company wives and some of the women who worked for Tri-Compass could probably be had, but he generally left them alone. They were too risky.
Not that he didn't run into plenty of temptations. Every one of the wives of his assistants, for instance, looked like a juicy morsel to him, and he'd often been tempted to make a pass. But all three appeared to be completely absorbed with their husbands, and not in a way that would allow them to put out a little for the sake of their husband's advancement.
Still, you never knew. George was about to take over the position of the retiring vice-president in charge of engineering. And either Ben, Able, or Chuck would get George's job. It would be a big step in the career of the man who took over the manager's desk.
Wives had been known before....
But he couldn't take any chances. If he were to make a pass at that big lush blonde, Edna Graham, for instance, she might make a stink, thinking that would help Chuck, and then where would he, George, be?
Out on his fanny, in all likelihood.
But if he ever figured there was a chance....
He wondered how the boys and their wives were making out up at the cabin, and he smiled to himself in the dark.
If anything could loosen up that bunch and give them some new and interesting ideas, a couple of weeks alone together at the cabin should.
Yeah, they'd be alone. They'd get a little bit bored, and they'd get a little more casual and intimate day by day. He knew how spending a couple of weeks up at the cabin could affect people.
He thought he heard a sound in the darkness.
Was that Inez sniffling? If there was anything he couldn't stand, it was a bawling woman.
He groaned inwardly and drifted off to sleep.