Chapter 7

I practically had to carry Sandra to the car, and then into the apartment when we got back there about 4:30 a.m. On the drive home, she had alternated between minutes of exhausted sleep and fits of trembling, whimpering near-hysteria.

I left her pretty much alone, too tired myself to fully enjoy her condition. And when I asked the questions that were bugging me enough to be bothered with, I got no satisfaction, either.

"Sandra," I had asked, as we pulled out of the Derrings' driveway, "was I really the only guy who'd fucked you before tonight?"

Sobs, and she turned angrily away from me to huddle against the car door.

"I want to know, Sandra. Were you really a virgin that night I... almost raped you?"

"You ... You did rape me!" came her muffled, choking answer. "You ALL raped me! Then, and tonight! Oh, I hate you ALL!"

But you came tonight, didn't you, Sandy? Harvey made you come, and you loved it. Was that the first-"

"I hated it!" she screeched, turning to glare at me with swollen, red-ringed eyes. "I... Oh, never mind!" And she turned away again, weeping violently.

When I got her home and in bed, she seemed a little calmer, though still shuddering and choking back sobs between brief periods of restless half-sleep, and I tried again.

"Sandy, listen. What does Eldridge have on you? How can he make you stay ... "

"Why do YOU need to know?" she hissed, her eyes closed tightly, one fist clenched against her lips. "You don't want out, and you don't want to help me, either. He's... He's got me right where you BOTH want me, you dirty, evil. .. Oh, LEAVE ME ALONE!"

I never did learn exactly what hold Eldridge had on Sandy ... and probably on all of his employees ... but I figured out that it must be some kind of faked-up evidence of massive embezzlement, that could have put any of them in jail for life if he'd wanted to use it. And did he have ... did he need ... that kind of leverage with the club members who didn't work for him? I still don't know.

My own work then, as I mentioned before, consisted of delivering and picking up laundry, on a route that included the hilltop neighborhood where Sandy had lived before our marriage.

It was, in fact, just two houses down the street from Sandy's folks' house that the next major development in my life took place.

It was four days after the swap orgy at Deerings' ... a Tuesday ... and I'd had a minor breakdown during the morning; by the time the truck would run again, I was a good two hours behind on the route. It was full dark when I turned onto Sandy's old block and pulled up in front of a big white house that had cleaning to be picked up every week.

There were lights on all over the house, and the bag, which they usually left on the porch, was nowhere in sight; they must have taken it in, thinking I wouldn't come till the next day. I could hear voices inside, but they stopped abruptly when I rang the doorbell.

I waited. Nothing. But they must have heard, and it couldn't possibly have taken them this long to answer, even if they'd been ...

Stubbornly, tired and annoyed, I rang again. I sure as hell didn't want to screw up tomorrow's route by having to come back here.

Still nothing, and finally I rang a third time, leaning on it.

But even that brought no response, and I was just about to turn away when I heard running footsteps and the door was flung open. Before my eyes could adjust to the burst of light from inside, a slim figure flashed past me and ran toward the sidewalk, trailing a mane of flowing blonde hair. The door slammed closed behind her.

"Hey!" I called, starting after her on pure reflex. "I'm just here for the cleaning! What's the ... "

Still running, she turned her head to look back at me, and tripped, slamming down to the concrete sidewalk, out flat.

When I reached her and picked her up, she was crying, bending over to hold a bleeding knee, her long blonde hair fallen over her face.

"Come on," I said, holding her shoulders, and noting now that she wore only a dressing gown. Whether there was anything underneath it, I couldn't tell. "Let's get you in the house so you can clean that up and bandage it."

She fought free as I tried to turn her toward the house. "No! I can't go back there! My parents ..." She began to shiver, and sort of slumped into my arms.

"Look, kid," I insisted, tipping her face up and holding her chin, "you've got to get somewhere and get that scrape taken care of! Why can't you-"

She jerked her head away. "Could I...? Is that your truck?"

I nodded.

"Well, couldn't I just get in the truck for a minute till it stops bleeding? I'll be all right, really."

We got in the truck, and while the girl stopped the flow of blood from her knee with Kleenex I provided, I learned several things that turned my puzzlement into compelling fascination.

I learned first, as she scrootched around in the driver's seat to get at the knee, and I crouched beside her ... there was no passenger seat ... with a comforting hand on her shoulder, that she wasn't wearing anything under the thin dressing gown. Twice, I got brief glimpses of the tawny bush at the top of her slim white thighs; and the movement of her breasts as she mopped the drying blood from her calf made it apparent that no bra restrained them.

And as I questioned her gently and her sobbing subsided, I learned that her name was Denise, and that her parents were in the house with a neighbor couple ... not Sandra's folks; someone named Wilson, whom I'd never heard of ... stark naked in the living room, swapping mates!

Denise had been in her room, she told me, supposedly sound asleep, as she had to get up at three a.m. to go to work at a bakery. But she hadn't been able to sleep, and had come downstairs for a snack... to find her mother "wallowing all over that horrible man... and Daddy and Mrs. Wilson were right beside them, and she had his... Oh, God, don't make me talk about it! Please!"

"It's okay, Denise," I soothed, slipping my arm around her and pulling her close. I was really concerned; really feeling sorry for the poor kid and trying to help her get control of herself. But even so, I couldn't help sneaking a peek down the front of that dressing gown as she let herself slump toward me ... And between the clear view of her little white breast, right down to the tiny pink nipple, and the mental picture I had of what her folks were doing in the house ...

"Didn't you know they were... well, swingers, Denise? Did't you even suspect ... "

"Didn't I...! My God, if you knew how they've brought me up! Why, I hadn't even seen ..." She paused, looking up into my face as if lost.

"Tom," I said. "I'm Tom. Tom Beck."

"Tom, you may not believe this, but I'm nineteen years old, and not only am I still a virgin, but I'd never even seen my father undressed before tonight! I-"

Suddenly she looked down at herself, her gown's skirt open almost to the tops of her thighs, her right breast pressed against my ribs... She straightened up abruptly, pulled the gown closed to her knees and held it with one hand while she pressed the lapels to her throat with the other.

"I guess ... I suppose you can't believe me, the way I've been acting with you, Tom. I... I think I'm all right now," she went on, glancing quickly back toward my arm on her shoulders. "I should go now. I can walk over to this girlfriend's house in the next block, I guess. Her parents may be pretty nosy, but they'll let me stay there, I'm sure. Thank you, Tom, for ... "

"Now look. I'm not going to let you walk anywhere. You get over here and 111 drive you there. But..."

I knew there wasn't a chance, but I had to try, anyway:

"Denise, wouldn't you rather go to a motel, where you wouldn't have to answer all kinds of questions? I've got some money, and I know a place where they wouldn't care about no bags or ... I could check you in, and then just give you the key and... Well..."

"No, Tom." She smiled sweetly, and I thought she sort of snuggled against me as she began to move over so I could get in the driver's seat. "You've been just wonderful to me, but I couldn't let you spend money on me. Just turn around and take me down to Ann's house ... it's 477, in the next block ... and ... and write down my phone number. It's... Tom ... you aren't married, are you?"

"No!"

But she'd seen it in my face, I was sure.

"I mean yes, but we're... We aren't getting along. Do give me your number, Denise, and I promise I won't ask you out till... till we won't have to be sneaky about it. Till I'm free. Okay?"

Sandra was in a pretty good mood when I got home that night. She'd gotten over the emotional aftermath of the ordeal at Deerings' during the weekend, and over the worst of the soreness. And the past two days at work had apparently involved nothing to upset her again.

She even fixed my supper, whereas I'd expected to have to do that myself, even though she'd known since noon, when I'd called her at work, that I'd be late getting in, and why.

As I ate, with Sandy sitting across from me, reading some woman's magazine and looking up to smile at me every now and then, I committed Denise's phone number firmly to memory, knowing I'd have to dispose of the scrap of paper I'd written it on, before the next time Sandy had occasion to go through my wallet in search of money or a charge card or...

After supper, I told Sandy I was dead on my feet ... which was true ... and was going right to bed.

To my surprise, she decided to join me. Usually she sat up and read or watched TV at least until 11:30, whether I stayed up with her or not.

I got in bed naked, as usual, while Sandy was still in the bathroom. I closed my eyes, thinking of Denise, trying to envision her without the dressing gown or anything else... slim and white, that straight blonde hair falling well past her pink nipples, that tawny bush and the tight, untried slit it concealed ...

I heard Sandy emerge from the bathroom, and felt her weight shift the mattress. Why hadn't she turned out the light, as she always did before she got in bed:

And then she rolled over against me ... and she was naked! And she hadn't put her hair up, even!

"Tommy..."

"What's with you, Sandra? You've never ... "

"Tommy, I'm,... I'm hot. Make love to me, Tommy. Okay?"

If it hadn't been for Denise, it would have been no contest. I'd have been on top of her, in her, squirming all over her like a grateful puppydog before she'd even had the words out.

But as it seemed to me then, my bitch of a wife, with her uncanny instinct for frustrating me, had screwed up what I'd foreseen as a long, slow, delicious daydream romp with the most beautiful little virgin any stud could hope to meet. I might even have slipped into the bathroom a little later to jack off, as I pictured my soon-to-be-undertaken conquest of Denise. Yes, if the meat seemed sufficiently recovered to undergo such exercise, I might have.

But I was damned if I was going to feed the meat to my slut of a wife, ready and eager or net!

I rolled away. "Go to sleep, Sandy. I'm tired."

"Tommy, you can't..." She moved up behind me, pressing her hard-nippled tits against my back, her bush tickling my ass as she curled her legs into mine ... "I want you on top, Tom. I want you to really fuck me! I... I need it!"

Her hand slipped over my hip now, found my half-hard cock and began to tease and stroke it. "Tom, I... I don't know what's happening to me! I still hate sex, and I hate Mason and all those men in the clubhand their horrible, dirty wives, and ... But, Tom, I can't stop thinking about it ... how it was, and...

"Oh, Tom, you've got to fuck me! I've been burning up all day! Every time Mason or Jack would walk past my desk today, I'd start to ..."

I could feel her other hand wedging its way down past my ass, and then her wrist pressing rhythmically against me as she rubbed her clit frantically, her legs twitching against mine, her right hand jerking urgently on my cock, which wasn't responding at all.

She was ... well •... disgusting.

I brushed her hand away and lurched to my feet beside the bed. Even as I stood looking down at her, with all the lights on and the bedclothes thrown back, she went on jacking herself off, now with both hands, her eyes staring pathetically up at me.

"Tommy, please! Any way you want! I'll ... "

"Go fuck yourself, Sandra," I said in anger, and then laughed as I realized what I'd said.

"Better yet, stay here and fuck yourself. I'm going to sleep on the couch. And if you drag that horny ass out after me, I'll leave; and I won't be back to take you to the next swap club thing, either. I don't need you, you bitch, and you'd better be careful not to get me sick of this swapping shit any sooner than necessary, because when I've had my fill of that, we're through, baby. Do you understand?"

"Tommy, don't... Tom, I'm sorry! It's just that I've got to have ... I need a cock in me! Do you want me to suck you first? I'll make it hard, Tom, and then you can ... "

She had squirmed to the "edge of the bed, reaching for the meat again, when I spun away and slammed the door shut behind me. "Stay in there, you slut," I shouted through it. "Don't come out till I've gone to work in the morning, either, if you ever want to see me again. Maybe by tomorrow night I'll be able to stand the sight of you. Maybe I'll even feel like screwing you then, just for old times' sake!

"You hear me, bitch?"

I could hear her moaning and whimpering, but there was no answer, no sound of her coming toward the door, and I soon turned away and went to flop down on the couch.

Shit! If Denise hadn't been at that damn girlfriend's house, I would have called her right then. She was going to be a long, hard piece to put the make on, and the sooner I got started ...