Chapter 10
No doubt Jill would have remained with her uncle and aunt for the remainder of the summer until she was ready to leave Fruitvale and return to seek a job in Portland except for what happened late the following afternoon.
In his preoccupation with Jill's problem, and the problem of taking care of her, Big Lou had neglected to phone Art Davidson as he had intended to do, to try to get Davidson to keep his wife from talking about what they had seen in Boise. But perhaps this wouldn't have done any good anyway, he consoled himself later, women being as they were and men having so little control over them.
Jill remained home from work that day, of course, and she spent most of the time sulking in her room. Lou had sent Marjorie Steck, from the office, over to Jill's hotel room to pack her things and bring them to the house. Jill wouldn't speak with Marjorie when she arrived but Jill's Aunt Fanny seemed to understand this and made apologies for her.
Late in the day, however, Aunt Fanny received a telephone call from a very good friend a woman who also was a good friend of Etta Davidson and after that Aunt Fanny behaved like a totally different person. She went to the bedroom which she shared with Uncle Lou, and on the one occasion when Jill rapped at the door to have a chat with her, she called, "Go away." Her voice betrayed the fact that she was crying.
That evening she and Lou had the matter out. Jill could hear them fighting, and there was no sign at all that any dinner was being prepared. Jill, not knowing what the fight was about, assumed it might have to do with her moving into the house. Perhaps this had displeased her aunt ... and yet, the woman had indicated no such displeasure during most of the day.
Jill hoped this was the explanation. She hoped Aunt Fanny would insist on her moving out, for this was certainly what Jill herself wanted to do.
Around the middle of the evening there was a rap at Jill's door and she found her uncle standing in the hall, looking not at all like himself. He was even more serious than he'd been the night before at Doctor Perkins' office.
He said he wanted to talk. When they were seated in her room and the door was closed, Uncle Lou began:
"Fanny and I are ... well, we're having a little disagreement and ... the fact is, she's gonna take a little trip. Her family lives in Spokane and she's gonna visit them for a while."
"You and Aunt Fanny are breaking up?" Jill asked bluntly.
"No, no," Lou said, but his tone was not at all convincing. "Nothing like that. She's gonna be away for a while. So ... in view of that ... well, I don't see how you could stay on here. I mean, it wouldn't look very good ... at least, until I could find a housekeeper and all ... "
Jill felt like jumping for joy. But she appeared properly distressed and asked solicitously if there was anything at all that she could do.
"No, darling," Big Lou said sorrowfully. "Nothing. Except to be real careful how you behave yourself over there at the hotel, you understand?"
"Oh yes, Uncle Lou. I will."
"I've already talked to the men at the company. I've let them know what will happen to them if they ever bother you. And as for those four who broke into your room last night ... the state police are after them. Four men didn't show up at the plant this moraine, and we're pretty sure they're the ones."
"Shall I get my things together right now?"
"Yes, honey, I guess you'd better," Lou said, standing up. "I'll call Wilbur at the hotel. And I'll drive you over there, of course ... right after I take your Aunt Fanny to the train depot."
"She's leaving tonight?"
Lou nodded. "She made up her mind suddenly." He tried a smile. "You know how women are."
After he had walked dejectedly from her room, Jill sat down to think over this strange turn of events. What could possibly have happened, she wondered, to have broken up her uncle's marriage so abruptly? And he and Aunt Fanny had seemed so ideally suited to one another, too.
Well, a person just never knew, did they?
During the ensuing weeks, Jill's life was duller than at any time since she had grown to womanhood.
The men at the office, including Jack Able, all looked at her. That was true of the men in the plant, also. But none of them would say more than "Good morning" or "Good afternoon." Her uncle must have put the fear of Judgment Day into them, Jill decided.
Not only that, but she couldn't have any fun around the hotel, either. The manager watched over her like a sheep dog guarding a troublesome member of the flock.
There wasn't a man in town who would do anything but look at her ... and that only from a distance.
As for Lou himself, he continued to look, also. But whenever she would try to flirt, he turned quickly away. He spent most of the time in his private office with the door shut. He was like a different man, and everyone said this was because Fanny had left him.
Jill had heard the cause of her uncle's marital breakup, of course, and that had surprised her. She'd had no idea Uncle Lou was a chaser after women. He certainly hadn't laid a hand on her.
But, of course, she was his niece, and she guessed this made all the difference.
As for Jack Able, he treated her almost as if she were one of the guys. Her efforts to intrigue him had proved unavailing. He had even told her he would appreciate it if she wouldn't talk to him at all. "This isn't much of a job," he told her. "If that was all that was involved, I'd say what the devil. But after that trouble at the hotel and the way Big Lou's passed the word around town, I'd be afraid to be seen out with you for fear the cops would pick me up."
Jack still looked at her, however.
She caught the longing, expression on his face more than once, and this gave her a certain degree of satisfaction, slight though this was.
She felt that in time he would break down and ask her for a date, but the weeks went by and he didn't. She marveled at his self-control, then began to wonder if perhaps she was losing her appeal.
She needn't have had any doubts on that score, however.
The fact of the matter was that Jack Able was suffering from a very keen desire for her, and this was made keener by the fact that he had been encountering considerable difficulty in getting dates with other girls.
The episode with Linda Samuels, the night her mother had walked in on Jack's visit to Linda's bedroom, had been broadcast around town, and now no mother cared to have her daughter associate with him. So he now found himself virtually restricted to dating the motherless ones tramps and farm laborers who drifted in and out of town.
These didn't exactly suit Jack Abie's taste, and this was the crux of his present problem. This was what drove him finally to do what he had thought about only half-seriously in the past that is, to seek a date with Marjorie Steck, who manned the reception desk at the office.
He had to ask her several times before she accepted. She had been afraid he wasn't serious, Jack assumed. On the night of the date, she was dressed up as he'd never seen her before, and she had all the fluttery excitement of a junior high school girl going out for the first time.
Marjorie was almost forty and a spinster. Though angular, both in face and body, she had small breasts which stood prominently and buttocks that looked pert and firm. Jack had been forced to allow for the girdle that she obviously wore, as far as an appraisal of her buttocks was concerned.
Funny, he thought, that so many girls wore girdles who didn't need them ... and then there were those who did need them but couldn't care less.
Marjorie wore one. She wore one on the night of their date, as Jack decided when he was escorting her to his car and she walked in front of him.
Maybe the girdle was primarily for protection, he thought. If that was what she had in mind, the hope was a false one. The way he felt that night, more than a little spandex was going to be required to keep him from doing what he needed to do very badly ... and what Marjorie, if he was any judge, badly needed to have done to her.
He took her to dinner, and he was a little self-conscious in the restaurant, since the differences in their ages was quite obvious. Marjorie was not a bad-looking woman, however particularly that night. She had fixed herself up pretty well. Anyway, her features were basically pretty and she had a graceful svelteness. Her hair was a natural-looking light auburn.
But she was no kid ... though she was trying her best to act like one.
After dinner, they went to a movie. There was little else to do in Boise, unless they wanted to go to a bar and drink. Jack wasn't much of a drinker, and Marjorie had demurred when he'd suggested cocktails before dinner.
After the show, they stopped for coffee.
They had talked, during the evening, about the office, as two co-workers are apt to do on their first date ... as if they didn't hear enough about office affairs from nine to five, Mondays through Fridays. Jack tried a couple of times to make some progress with Marjorie in a personal way, but she made nothing of his remarks. He couldn't believe she wasn't interested in being loved way down d ep. He preferred to believe that she was reluctant to bring her true feelings out to the open.
So he didn't hesitate to find a parking spot when they were about halfway home. She didn't act surprised when he turned off the main road excited but not surprised and when he brought the car to a stop and twisted on the seat to face her, her brown eyes were alight with anticipation.
She submerged this when she spoke, however: "My, isn't the moonlight lovely! I don't blame you for wanting to stop and look at it."
"I didn't stop to look at the moonlight," he said softly but with seriousness.
She glanced at him. "Oh?"
"I wanted to look at you. You're lovely, Marjorie."
"Oh, really now..." She blushed.
"You are." Smiling confidently, he moved closer. "And do you know what I'd like to do right now?"
"Wh-what's that?"
"I'd like very much to kiss you."
"Well, I ... I guess that might be ... all right. That is, if you want to."
He continued to look at her and, after a few moments, she said, "Well?"
Said Jack, "On the nipples."
"What?" The word almost strangled her.
"I would like to kiss your nipples."
"Well, if ... I mean..." She had practically lost her voice.
This gambit on Jack's part was designed for one purpose to put their relationship on the right basis immediately and thus minimize the effort involved in making her. She wasn't the sort he would be willing to work all night to seduce ... and why should this be necessary when he knew darned well that she wanted to be seduced at least as badly as he wanted to seduce her? Most men might not have been so blunt. But, then, most men wouldn't have stood much chance with a 39-year-old spinster on the first night out, either.
"What do you say?" Jack pressed as he slid his right arm around her shoulders. "May I?" He lifted his left hand to the top of her dress, in front, where a row of buttons extended to her waist.
She seemed angry. "So that's what you think of me! You think you can take me out, make a cheap vulgar remark like that, and strip my clothes off, eh?"
"There was nothing vulgar about what I said," he insisted. "I was just being honest. I want to kiss your nipples, and that was what I told you." He leaned closer, his hand (which she hadn't attempted to remove) now toying with her top button. "How about you? Wouldn't you like to have your nipples kissed on a nice moonlit night like this?"
Her face was flushed and her eyes were snapping as she looked directly at him, but he would have bet these manifestations were due as much to passion as to anger ... perhaps more. "I'm insulted," she proclaimed. "Still, she didn't remove his hand.
He opened one button. "Marjorie baby, let's not be children, huh?"
"Well, I'm hardly a child ... particularly in comparison to you."
He opened the second button. "You act like one when you won't face up to facts."
"What facts?" She was trying to act as if she didn't know he was undressing her. But she knew, all right. Jack could tell by her eyes that she was thinking. She was breathing harder, too, and her face had become even more flushed. That way, she looked positively tempting.
He slipped button number three. "The fact of your nipples and how I'd like to kiss them."
"Really!"
He opened button four. "I'll bet you have pretty nipples. Women with your coloring usually do. I'll bet they're a real nice rosy beige."
"No," she murmured weakly and put her hand on his just as he released her fifth button.
"You mean they're not rosy beige?" he whispered, his lips moving closer.
"I mean ... you shouldn't ... " This last, was delivered in a passionate breath.
"But I want to. And you want me to. And that makes everything all right." Quickly he freed his hand, opened button six, and slipped his hand inside her dress.
"Ohh ... "
"They feel very nice," he murmured as his fingers moved in a circular pattern about her right mound ... slowly but insistently. "Your breasts, I mean.
I haven't felt your nipples ... yet." He pinched the apex of the mound sharply.
"Oh, nohhh..." She was fighting a losing battle with her self-control.
Jack smiled. "There's that little tip." He kept moving his thumb and index finger in a pincers. "Stand up, you little dickens! Come on ... stand for daddy . ... "
Marjorie lay her head back against the top of the car seat. She was breathing heavily. Jack had her now for the taking, he knew. This was as easy as he had believed, once he had her in the right setting.
He continued to stroke and pluck at her brassiered nipple, and finally dropped his fingers to the lower edge of her bra. He worked his fingertips under the rim and slid them up inside the cup. Shoehorning with the back of his hand, he raised the cup off her breast entirely.
"There!" He held her white, trembling, soft-firm breast in his hand. Her nipple was hard, thrusting straight at him, and he was surprised to note that the turgid little tip wasn't rosy-beige at all but an angry red.
He had always thought red nipples were the most exciting. A nipple couldn't be too red to suit him, and this was one of the reddest he had ever seen.
He played with her nipple in the nude, stroking and rolling and pulling at the sensitive flesh gently.
Marjorie cried out, "Oh, my heavens, love me! I can't wait! Put me on the back seat and drive me wild!"
"Unh-uh," Jack murmured, continuing to caress her very stiff nipple. "There's not enough room in the car."
"Where then?" she demanded anxiously.
"On the ground."
"But my clothes..."
"Take them off."
"Here?"
"No, step out."
"But, Jack, if someone should come ... how would that look?"
"Very pretty, I'll bet."
"Ohhh, Jack ... "
He cuddled. "No one will come along, sweet. We're all alone. There's just you and me, angel, in the whole wide world, and we're going to make the wildest, most passionate love that anyone ever imagined. I'm going to take you all the way again and again until you only want to sleep, and then you can rest your head on my shoulder while we drive home."
That turned the trick. She couldn't resist such a sales talk.
Her naked breast fairly leaped from his hand as she opened the car door and got out. They were in a little meadow where the grass was thick and soft. The only thing to concern them was a little dew ... but he doubted Marjorie would even feel that when the time came for her to lie down.
He followed her out of the car and began to undress at the same time she did. He watched her body gradually being bared to the moonlight. Her dress rose in a flurry and was gone. Next she completed the removal of her brassiere. After this came her slip.
She bent and ungartered her stockings. By the time she had brushed these down her slim legs, removed them, and slipped her feet back in her shoes, Jack had removed his shorts.
She stared at him. "Ohhh!"
"Hurry up," he said softly.
"Yes ... yes..."
She stripped her white panties off, then the girdle which as next to her skin.
"You are pretty," he said as he moved up to take her in his arms. "You're slim and lovely as a goddess."
"Oh, Jack ... Jack..."
Jack wanted not only to please himself, but to make the experience as good for her as possible. He had always felt a little sorry for Marjorie he did at that very moment, in fact.
He ran his hands all over her, from her shoulders to the small of her back, from there to her surprisingly firm little buttocks, and from her buttocks as far down her legs as he could reach. Then he moved his hands back up.
She gasped as he caressed her impudently. He wondered if she had ever been touched just like that before.
He wondered, in fact, if she had ever been like this with a man at all.
That question was answered before long, however, and Jack was pleased to find that Marjorie was not a virgin. She'd had some sort of experience. But, judging by the way she was acting, that experience hadn't been as good as what she was having right now ... or too long a time had elapsed.
She squirmed and rubbed herself against him, and actually tried to accommodate him while they were standing up. This would have been possible, Jack knew, since she was fairly tall and quite light. He could have lifted her a little and that would have been all that was required.
But he didn't like stand-up love.
There was only one way to love a woman, as far as Jack Able was concerned, and, and that was to get her on her back.
Marjorie didn't let him do this, however. At least ... not at first. As things developed, Jack himself was the one who felt the dew on the grass.
He petted and squeezed both of her breasts as they kissed and became acquainted by tongue. Marjorie didn't do this at first. He was forced to tease her with his tongue-tip several times before she extended her own and played back and forth from his mouth to hers.
He took his mouth away and whispered, "Lie down "
"Yes ... yes..."
He got down on his knees just as she did, but then she suddenly grasped him at the shoulders and twisted him onto his back. She was at him then, and there was nothing he could do. With her knees firmly planted in the grass, she sought and pressed.
Jack had her...
He didn't know if she was a horseback rider, but he wouldn't have doubted this in the least. If she wasn't, he would have bet she'd always had a suppressed urge to try.
She had remarkable energy, also.
He didn't have to do a thing, except to lie there, pet her back and sides, and run his hands occasionally to the tossing red-tipped pretties which bounded like separate live entities before his face. After a time he drew her close enough so that he could do exactly what he had said he wanted to do to her in the first place:
Kiss her nipples.
He kissed each of them lingeringly, holding the turgid little spikes between his lips and teeth, first one and then the other, as his hands slipped all the way down her back and caressed her in the way which he had done before when they were standing. Now this was even easier ... and more fun. In fact, this drove Marjorie wild.
They finished together, in a burst of suddenly released passion that shook them and all but drove them out of their minds with delight.
Almost immediately, Jack eased her over to the grass an proceeded to go to work as he had intended to do at the beginning. She was happily amazed that he was ready to go again so soon.
She gripped him about the back, tore at him with her fingernails, and told him at his ear exactly what she wanted him to do.
But he was already doing that.
He did that twice again before the evening over.