Chapter 1
The DOOR CHIMES STARTLED SUE PARKER SO BADLY that she almost dropped the tray of glasses she was carrying into the playroom. She set the tray down, brushed a wisp of dark blonde hair back off her forehead and walked through the hall with long strides. She glanced at herself in the mirror in the vestibule before she opened the door.
"I'm a mess," she said irritably.
It was not true. Sue Parker was one of the most comely housewives in the development, not beautiful, but pretty in a glowing, healthy way. Her soft, wavy hair was a shade somewhere between brown and blonde. She had good features and even white teeth that she showed frequently in a radiant smile. Her eyes were bright and blue and wide-set. Today there was a smudge on one high cheekbone. She paused to tuck the tails of her blouse into the waistband of her stretch pants, and the thin material pulled tautly across her small, pointed breasts. At thirty-one, Sue had a lithe, girlish figure that showed to best advantage in tight clothing like the stretch pants. The synthetic fabric clung to her like a second skin, molding the contours of her backside and showing the elastic leg bands of the panties beneath.
Sue opened the door a crack, careful to leave the chain on. She saw a man with a black sample case, and her voice was sharp and unfriendly.
"What do you want?"
The caller was young, about twenty-five, quite good-looking and well dressed. He grinned pleasantly. "I represent the Sloan Publishing Company, ma'am, and this month we have a special on -" He never got the chance to complete the pitch.
"No!" she snarled and slammed the door in his face. She leaned back against it for a long time with her eyes closed. The old, familiar nausea spiraled up inside her once again. It had been over a year since the last tune she had allowed a door-to-door salesman to come into the house. But that seemed like yesterday.
That would always seem like yesterday, no matter how much time elapsed.
For the first five years of their marriage, Wes and Sue Parker had enjoyed an idyllic relationship in bed and out of bed. Wes had been a skilled and ardent lover, and Sue, who had been a virgin before she had married him, was an eager learner. Now that she thought about that, she decided that she had always been more eager than her husband in matter of love. She had been the temptress. But, as the years went on and Wes became more and more immersed in his work, their love life gradually began to fall apart. They had come to the point, now, where he rarely made love to her more than once a month. And even then that seemed mechanical, a disagreeable chore he was performing. Lots of times, lately, he had not even been capable.
It was a humiliating thing for an affectionate, passionate woman like Sue, in the prime of life, to be rejected by the man she loved. She did love Wes. sincerely. In fact, she was even sorrier for him than she was for herself. She had rend that impotence was the one malady the male feared more than anything else. Several times in the past two years she had tried to discuss the problem with him. but each time he had flushed and not ten angry.
"I'm not a kid any more. Sue," he had admonished her the last time. "I've got more to think about than rolling around in the hay. I'm head of the English department now. I've got a million responsibilities that I didn't have five years ago. I'm working on my thesis, correcting papers until the middle of the night. For the love of heaven, Sue, grow up!"
She had not said anything further to him, but she had thought plenty. Grow up! That was the trouble. She was grown up, a big girl, a female in every fiber of her body and being. And she needed to be treated like a female. In the warm nights of late spring and early summer, she would he awake in the darkness, rigid and restless, staring at the ceiling and listening to Wes snoring peacefully beside her. Sometimes he would toss in his sleep, and touch her with a knee or a hand unconsciously. The touch of his flesh on her was like a searing brand. Her nipples would swell against the bodice of her nightgown. She would grow heavy with longing, would see phantoms on the ceiling.
Sue and Wes, young, in their early twenties, the first year of marriage. The nights when she would awaken and feel like this had been so different then, glorious. In the darkness she would reach over and feel for him with her shy hand. The miracle of desire delighted her, awed her. She would caress him softly, straining her eyes in the darkness to watch him. He never disappointed her. Under her plying touch, he would tremble in his slumber and make the strange whining sound that always reminded Sue of a stallion. He was her stallion! And he would awaken slowly. Then she would feel his hands on her, on her firm, pointed breasts, with his fingers teasing her nipples until they stood out and fairly glowed in the dark. When his other hand glided over her she would cry out with agonized joy. There was no need for him to touch her, really. She was always ready for him before he was ready for her. And, finally, there would be her sharp cry of ecstasy as he took her. Gone forever!
The shock of the realization was enough to drive her mad. After ten years, that was over, the wonderful thing they had known together. Sue would bury her face in her pillow to muffle the sound of her sobbing and cry herself bitterly to sleep.
Then the awful thing had happened, about a year ago, on a sweltering afternoon in June. Between the heat and the growing estrangement with Wes, she had had one of her bad nights. All night she had felt the pain of her sensitive breasts. The touch of the sheet, of her own hands, was sufficient to send trills of sensation coursing through her. She was tied up in knots of frustration.
She had awakened in the same state. To overcome that, she had thrown herself into a round of heavy and unnecessary housecleaning. That hadn't helped either. After lunch she had filled the tub with hot water and immersed herself for a half-hour. That only made things worse. The gentle caress of the warm water flowing over her was impossibly sensual. She looked at her breasts bobbing like rubber balls on the surface with then pink summit thrust straight into the air. She glistened with beads of moisture. She felt a tantalizing sensation, was mesmerized as her hands slid up her side:-, and covered her breasts. A dreamy lassitude overcame her as she caressed the round mounds of creamy flesh. She closed her eyes and pretended they were Wes's hands. Desire leaped like a mercury arc from breast to breast.
Her eyes snapped open abruptly and the spell was broken. With a shudder of self-revulsion she flung back her head. What was happening to her? What kind of a twisted and depraved monster was she turning into? A wave of bitterness and hatred washed over the unnatural desire that had gripped her. Wes! This was all his fault! If he were a real man, she wouldn't be in this torment. The thought of him filled her with disgust at that moment. She got out of the tub and into her terry cloth robe, belting that loosely about her slim waist. Still seething with resentment, she ran a comb through her short hair and tied it back with a red ribbon. Her face had a freshly scrubbed look that made her seem innocent and virginal.
She didn't hear the door chimes at first. They rang a second and a third time. Her initial impulse was not to answer the summons. She wasn't exactly prepared for company, without make-up. Sue was very vain about her appearance. But her feet look her down the hall anyway She pulled the collar of the robe up modestly about her throat and opened the door. A strange young man stood on the porch, dark-haired, tall, lean with a saturnine face that was quite handsome. He wore a checked sports coat and gray slacks.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Parker," he said amiably. "I represent the Overholt Publishing Company. Our office received a request from your husband inquiring about the price of a new set of our books."
Sue was annoyed. She recalled Wes had mentioned something about buying some books. So why didn't he tell them to send a salesman at night when he was home?
"I don't know anything about it," she told the young man. "Can you come back when my husband is home?"
"I'd be happy to," he said. "But could I leave some literature with you? Then Mister Parker can look it over and decide before he calls me."
It was a reasonable request, and she could not refuse him. She stepped aside and held the door open. For no good reason, she felt naked and vulnerable in front of this male stranger. The robe covered her from neck to ankles, was far more modest than some of the shorts and tight pants women wore to the supermarket. But she was very aware of her nakedness underneath. She clutched the folds tightly as if she were afraid the belt would untie and she would expose her body to his eyes. Her preoccupation with the robe made the young man quite aware that she wore nothing else. He studied her thoughtfully as he followed her into the parlor.
It was dim and relatively cool in the big room. The blinds and drapes were drawn against the sun. She indicated a chair near the coffee 'table for him and sat opposite him on the couch with her knees held primly together and the robe tucked around her. One hand still held the robe shut at the throat. He repressed a smile.
"I didn't interrupt anything important, did I?" be asked casually as he opened his brief case.
"No, not at all." Her eyes avoided his, and two spots of color suffused her cheeks. "I I was just getting dressed, that's all."
"I see." He was sorting pamphlets and circulars on the table, but at the same time he was watching her furtively. She was quite a dish, he thought. Jumpy as a cat. All wound up. He wondered why. Sam Collier was a student of human nature, especially feminine nature. He had been at his sales job for seven years now, had learned a lot from the people he sold to. One of the things he had learned was that housewives were a restless breed. There was a special series of questions he used to trade them.
"How long have you been married, Mrs. Parker?"
"Ten years."
Positive!
"Any children?"
"No."
Positive!
"The books are for your husband and you then?"
"For my husband. He's an English teacher. He thinks they'll save him spending all those nights at the library."
Positive! A hubby who doesn't come home at night. Sue Parker was a set-up. There was no doubt about that in his mind.
She had tucked the robe so tightly about her legs that the effect was just the opposite of what she had wanted. The round contours of her hips and upper legs were vividly defined beneath the terry cloth. He looked at her more boldly now, noting the rapid rise and fall of her breasts lifting against the material.
Sue was conscious of his admiring gaze, and that panicked her. The rough cloth rubbing over her nipples with every breath made them itch maddeningly, and she could feel them stirring slowly. Suppose he could see them? She glanced down fearfully and hunched her shoulders forward to minimize the bulge of her bosom.
Sam smiled and dropped his gaze to her knees. The folds had parted and he could see her shapely calves and slender ankles. Her feet were shod in angora mules. She was pleasantly tan, not too brown and leathery the way some of the women got from too long in the sun. Just sort of a dusky olive tone. He felt the first stirring of desire.
"Would you please sign this, ma'am?" He slid a card and a pen across the coffee table toward her. "It's just an acknowledgment for the company files that I did visit you today."
Wes was always warning her not to sign things without reading them. Sue leaned forward and picked up the pen, reading the card on the low table in front of her. As she did so, she had to let go of the collar of the robe. The cloth fell away and a plunging vee of white flesh was visible at the neckline. Sam's eyes feasted on the cleavage. Succulent creamy texture swelled up at the lower end of the vee. She bent her head closer to the card to read the fine print, and the robe pulled open even more. On the left side, half of the breast spilled into view, dangling away from her body like a snowy pear. He could make out the pinkish rim of her aureole.
His eyes moved over her body. Bending forward on the low couch, Sue could not keep her knees pressed so tightly together. And the same motion pulled at the skirt of the robe which was tucked so tightly beneath her. Sam had a heady glimpse of sleek, tawny flesh. The salesman sighed.
As Sue put the pen to the card to sign, finally, she felt his eyes appraising her. That was a female instinct. She knew, too, that she should do something about the collar of the robe. That was open too much, showing far too much of her breasts. "Let him look," she told herself, feeling giddy suddenly. Wes never looked at her breasts any more. That was gratifying for her to be admired as a woman. Gratifying to see that look in the eyes of a virile male, and know that her presence had aroused the look. She was very conscious of the young man's good looks and lean, strong body. His hands were brown and large. Without lifting her head, she looked surreptitiously up from lowered lashes, studying his long legs, bulging muscularly in the fashionably tight trousers. More and more of late, Sue had, caught herself watching men's legs. That embarrassed her. That was one thing for men to look at girls' legs; the girls liked them to. But for a girl to ogle them, was positively lecherous. She made a game out of speculating about individual men. Were they all the same? She wondered, never having seen any other man except her husband, and darned little of him, the past few years. And what she had had of him lately wasn't very masculine!
Sue smiled ruefully and signed the card. She felt the robe part, saw the flash of upper leg, sensed the direction of his gaze. A flame seemed to flash the length of her legs, scorching her. The terrible aching need she had experienced in the tub enveloped her again. She was literally drunk with desire. She could not turn her own eyes away from him. She sat mesmerized as he stood up and came around the table to the couch.
"My name is Sam," he said thickly. He stood before her. She knew she should be angry, should send him from the house in righteous indignation, slap his face, possibly even report him to the company. What kind of woman did he think she was? But what her mind and her morality and her good sense dictated were vetoed by the animal part of her.
She slumped back against the cushions of the couch with her flushed face turned up to his in anticipation.
"No," she said woodenly as he sat down beside her. Then his lips were on her lips and a whimper died in her throat. Her mouth, quiescent at first, began to work against his. Her arms crept round his neck and drew him closer.
She felt his hands opening the robe, untying the belt at her waist. And the air struck her nude body. He stopped kissing her so that he could enjoy, the sight of her nudity.
"You're lovely," he said.
If anyone had told Sue that she would have permitted a man she had met less than fifteen minutes before to look upon her nakedness, she would have been mortified. Shocked. Angry. Now that that was happening, she had a feeling of delicious wantonness she had never realized existed in her. She lay back against the cushions, heavy-lidded, with her head thrown back and her bare breasts jutting high into the air and their inflamed nipples reaching out to him. Her breasts and her bottom were white in contrast to the rest of her body, showing the outlines of her two-piece swim suit.
She stared at his hand in fascination as he stroked her quivering legs. He lifted her feet and placed them on the edge of the table. Now the hand had access to the bottom globes of her buttocks, caressed, punched the plump crescents until Sue was acting like a woman in the grip of a fit. At the same time, his kisses traveled over her breasts.
Sue went wild with passion. She thought that her desire was infinitely more powerful than anything she had ever known with Wes in the good days. But there was no way to compare, really. She had been deprived for so long of this vital part of life that she was rather in the state of a man who has been on the desert for a month without a taste of water. When he does get water at last, it tastes like the nectar of the gods. Mumbling incoherently, she tore at his clothes with clawed talons, dizzy at the realization that her allure had turned him into a panting, frothing animal. She felt like one of those little fillies you saw in farm meadows in the spring, whinnying and rubbing against the fence rails to attract the young stallions in the adjoining pasture.
She was woman. Desirable woman. And she felt alive for the first time in years. He knelt on the couch and let her explore and adore him with her hands. She was like a child with a new toy, or, rather like a child with a toy that she has found again after many years. Her eyes were round and wondering. She cooed and she simpered, and her hands caressed him until he had to tell her to stop.
"I'll blow my top right now, honey," he warned.
"Oh no!" The idea of being left in this state that he had brought her to without fulfillment was terrifying. She twisted around and flung herself supine on the couch. Her hands tugged at him.
"Now, now, quickly!" she begged.
He grinned. He had met some eager numbers in his time, but this witch beat them all. She was so wild with desire that she was bouncing around on the couch. He had really tapped a live one this time. He wondered about her old man. Was the guy over the hill? Not likely. Hers would be the same hackneyed old story he had heard a thousand times before.
Guy and girl get married. They're mad for each other for a while. Then the guy gets in a rut. Same old boobs. Same old rear. The bedroom gets to be as prosaic as the favorite easy chair. And there's his job. He starts to get ahead, discovers that there's a heady thrill in recognition, a fulfillment that's closely akin to sensual satisfactions. He works so hard to achieve this kind of satisfaction that he spends himself. There's no charge left in his batteries for the little woman when he gets home at night.
He looked into Sue Parker's swollen, flaming face, the feverish eyes. She had the malady worse than most.
He took her slowly, tantalizing her as she rolled her eyes and pleaded, "Please! Please!"
Sue's entire body was on fire now, the ache of desire no longer localized. .Passion had inundated her whole body, her whole being, as they finally clashed like hated adversaries, tearing a cry of sheer agonized bliss from her lips. The titanic clash gave way to a rhythmic dance. Their steps were smooth and coordinated, fast, faster and then frenzied. Something had to give!
There was a tumultuous explosion. Sue heard that with her ears, felt herself consumed by the flames. And she was gone.
For years, year after year, she had carried a smoldering powder magazine around with her. It was inevitable that sooner or later someone like Sam Collier would happen by and strike a spark that would set off the whole business. She let the sensation wrack her, wrench her, deplete her. When that was over she lay back stunned and absolutely helpless.
Sam grinned at her and there was a note of respect in his voice. "You're quite a woman."
"Thanks." She felt wonderful, proud, alive again. "You're quite a man."
He winked. "You get your old man to buy a set of the books, and I'll throw in a bonus for you."
Pain twisted in her like a knife. "A bonus."
"Sure. I'll be back to see you twice more." He laughed. "Three to a customer, that's our rule."
Shame and humiliation overwhelmed her. She saw the interlude now for what that really was. See you twice more! The knife twisted more cruelly.
She belted the robe about her again and said sharply, "You don't have to come back. My husband will take the books. But you better stay away from here."
He looked puzzled. "But I'd like to. I want to see you "
"Get out!" she screamed at him. "Now!"
He shrugged and left her crying on the sofa. She felt dirty, defiled. And from that day on, she had never let another stranger into the house. She didn't trust them.
She didn't trust herself I