Chapter 4

PETERS AND HIS PETER

Wild music came from the next room, but there were few other sounds. Most of the couples were sleeping in exhaustion, replenishing their interests and physical abilities. I wandered about, looking at some of the couples. They had ended up in the weirdest of positions. It is odd how many men like to go to sleep with their hand stuck right on a girl's fanny, as if they don't trust her even while they are asleep. Henry had done even better. He and Yolanda were locked about each other-both asleep, and both slowly pressing against each other in their erotic dreams. Henry always did like to have permanent possession of a girl's cunt. I turned down the tape player so that the music did not make such a hellish row; then I got a fresh bottle of champagne and drifted back to join my sweetie, Sir Peters, in his large bed.

"Hey there-orgy girl, back again." Peters was awake, and I nestled down beside him. His hand quietly opened my towel and he lowered his head to slowly kiss my breasts. "Very nice! A chappie wakes up and finds such a beautiful pair of knockers waiting to make him hard again. What a gal, Diana! What a gal."

"Care for a glass?" I asked him.

"Yes, just a spot of cheery, my gal." He sat up and kept one hand on my slit playfully as we sipped and smiled at each other. I rested back and waited for him to become more interested. Peters was a gentle lover, and I was wondering exactly how old he was.

"Ah, nice fanny, gal, nice fanny." He lay next to me and kissed my breasts again, with champagne moist lips. "I'm afraid my old peter is letting me down these days. Few years back we could have got to it hog fashion, dog fashion, the darned lot. Now I've got troubles."

"Troubles? You? Tell me about them, dear." I snuggled down to listen.

"How old do you think I am, Diana?"

"Oh, forty something?" I smiled at him. His moustache tickled my nipple.

"Fifty-eight, me dear! Fifty bloody eight years old. I have had a hellish good run for my money. Now's the time to pay the darned piper-I suppose. Got prostate troubles."

"What is that?"

"Can't piss so easily, me dear. You see, it's my dashed parents' fault. They left me too much damned money. I ask you, with three million at twenty-five, what's a feller to do? Just girl after girl, and the most beautiful ones in the world, let me tell you. You are one of them of course. But, a chappie can't go on and on without the old motor-works kicking up some time or other. I've loved gals every night for years and years. Made a real hog of myself, damned good it has been! Now the doc tells me my prostate gland is four times the size it should be. Means little dickie can't stand up straight and hard like it used to. Means a nasty probing job by some butcher of a surgeon or other. By God, if they make me impotent I'll kill the devils. I swear I shall. What other pleasure is there left?"

"You have to have an operation?" I looked at him.

"Yes, fed up with these darned massages. Too many of them and they hurt like hell-stuck their finger up my arse to do it, you know. I shall be glad to have the old prostate out and be done with. Only thing, means my fucking days are pretty well over. Gad, a whole life-time given to cunt, and now I am being robbed of my connoisseurship. Jolly bitter, you know. Kind of makes me feel I've wasted a damned lot of talent. But, Jove, I've had some wonderful creatures in bed with me. I've had a lot of pigs, too, mark you. But the good ones have more than made up for the bad. Ever met anyone you really fitted with, Diana?"

His question startled me. I stared at Sir Peters and smiled, wanly. Then I nodded slowly and looked down at my half empty champagne glass.

"Damned good feller he was, I bet! You are one of the nicest pieces of cunt I have ever had, know that? Delicious gal. I say-wasn't that Samuel chappie, was it? Didn't you marry him and go off to some bloody God-forsaken spot like Australia, or something?"

I thought I might have tears in my eyes. In some ways it is best to forget the past, bury it, leave it to lie and moulder. Sir Peters chuckled and hugged me naked and tight against him.

"Yes, he was a good looking chappie. I thought, 'Farewell Diana', when you and he got spliced. Gave you a rough time, did he? Ought to have warned you about these empire builders damned ego-maniacs, the lot of them. Hellish hard on their women-folk. I knew one, made an old woman of his bride in eighteen months, and she was a stunner too. Had her myself, one Ascot week, before they married. Took her out to Africa, he did. What with the fever and the heat, poor little gal was an ancient crone inside two years. Never recognized her when she came back. Damned hard life-no life for a woman. Something like that happened to you, what?"

He patted me on the head. I caressed his cock and we turned and held each other in mutual so lace. It was not sexual; it was naked intimacy, and liking, and knowing, and feeling a great empathy for each other in our troubles. That was what was always so nice about Sir Peters. Many women would always love him, no matter what happened.

Sir Peters' words echoed as I lay and thought about it all. It was true. A girl gives everything, her life, herself, her freedom, all for one wedding ring. I did not regret doing so. But it had been a few fleeting months, not even a year.

My dear tough Samuel loved three things in life. He loved his yacht. He also loved his quest, the eternal search for a treasure or for a mineral deposit to make himself fabulously rich again. And after that he loved the free, wandering life. I slowly came to realize that Diana hardly existed in any of these three main loves. I was just someone there, someone who had happened along and made an ideal sex mate for him. As a person, I existed solely as Samuel's satellite, and hardly even that. I realized I had married an almost completely self-sufficient man. He had no need of me except in bed. Samuel could cook, sail, make money, carve a glittering career as a swashbuckling type of male other men love. I admired him, after my love died. I still do admire him. He was too great a sacrifice for me not to admire him forever. But love is not a thing that lives on admiring some tough he-man. Our marriage was wonderful at the start, when I thought he needed me. Only, bit by bit, it became all too obvious that Samuel needed nobody but himself. In a perverse way he would deny this, yet he would also agree it was so.

"I love you, Diana, that's all there is to it, girl. Now, tomorrow we get around the Stray Sheep Islands and beat north. I hear the pearlshell fleet is coming down from there, and they must be on to something." He banged his fist down on the charts. "We can beat them to it; I know we can. You see, we'll hit the jack-pot soon. I can almost smell the filthy lucre puring in. Then we can refit and sail for Hawaii."

I was alone. That was also a terrifying part of my marriage. It was not a matter of there being no communication-we talked and talked, but always about gold, treasure, shell, or new islands. I could see nothing there for me. I was on a yacht with twelve men as crew, and no place to hide from anyone.

"You're lucky for me," Samuel would say when we did make money. And he would airmail an order for a mink coat, or a diamond bracelet-along with orders for more diesel engine parts.

I suppose I was lucky for him. But he was not lucky for me. I was getting too thin. I was often sick, quietly, alone in our cabin. I hated the great vast emptiness of the oceans and the barren coasts. From Perth to the north there is nothing but rock, ocean, and ocean again.

Then there came the man from the Alder Islands. There were always men coming onboard with canvas bags, ideas, news, maps for sale, stories of gold or treasure lost somewhere. Samuel treated them all courteously, but he rarely did believe them. Only Duke was different, a quiet, mousy man. Out of his canvas bag he brought three small shells.

"These, Sam, they is from them Alder Islands. I gets 'em from a Kanaka alongs that way, year back. Now, them's are rare shells. They is worth fifty Yankee dollars apiece. Tiffany will buy all yer can gits, see, and there's not that many hundred of them, but there is enough to make a tidy sum, there is."

I liked Duke. He was young, with golden hair all untidily down his neck. Large blue eyes were set in his quiet face and he spoke as if he did not care whether Sam believed him or not.

"What do you do, Duke?" I asked slowly, while Sam was looking at the three small shells through an eye-piece.

"Well, Ma'am, little as possible. I drift the tide a bit, you might say. I reads a lot, history and economics, and also I learns a lot about birds. I got a degree from Sydney years back, but I comes up here to have an easy life. It's me chest-no clearer air in the world than up here. They gives me six months to live, five years back, so I gets on my bicycle and I comes out to the Northwest, and here I can live 'til I'm ninety, so they say." He smiled sadly at me. "You feeling alright, Ma'am?"

"Not too good, Sam." I smiled back.

"God, they are beautiful! Have a look at these, Diana!" Sam had that look in his eyes. He was onto something and he smiled a full smile at Duke, which meant a lot.

I inspected the shells slowly. They were, and are, the most beautiful shells I have ever seen. Tiffany buys them for ear-rings, and sets them in platinum with diamonds and rubies. The shells are about half an inch long, silver white outside, their mouths deep crimson, with small gold stars scattered inside. I was surprised, as each one was so perfect and so exquisite.

"Did you ever see anything like it?" Sam spoke gruffly.

"They are worth fifty dollars each." I told him. "I wonder how many there are there."

"Not many, Ma'am." Duke explained. "It's all on one reef what's hard to find, and them shells is in deep water most of the year. They rise come spring, and they like shallow water a while; then they gits deep again. I got this here map, what the Kanaka makes for me. I had to take him to the hospital; for he was a very sick feller and we saved him in the nick o' time, you might say. He gives me these, and I ain't done nothing about them. Now I wants to write to the University for books. I got to have them books, and I need some cash to gets them here."

"Would you make a deal?" Sam asked slowly, not taking his eyes off those three shells.

"That's what I comes here for." Duke smiled. "You got a fine boat, Sam, but it must cost a pretty penny to run it. The lads on the beach tells me you are fair, if you are interested in something. I ain't in no hurry. I got four years philosophy studying before me, and I needs them books to get the ground work done."

I was listening to them talk. Sam was making a deal for himself, and Duke would get the books. It was eighteen hundred miles to the Alder Islands where the shells were supposed to be. I was thinking of yet another voyage, an endless eighteen hundred miles-and I fainted.

When I came round, I was in our slide bunk. The yacht was under way and I slowly turned my head. Duke had just entered our cabin and he held onto the rail as he looked at me with the same sad smile.

"We're running for Larde Landing. There's a good jetty there, Ma'am." He explained it quietly.

"Oh, I am sorry, I seem to be very weak."

"There's some as can take this life, others as can't, Ma'am." Duke looked slowly about our cabin. "And this, it ain't no life for you. Not to my ways of thinking. Anyhows, there's a doctor at Larde and we'll gits you ashore and see what he says. He's a ripe Pommey doctor, and good if he ain't drunk too much rum." He hung on as the yacht pitched into seas. "Right rough, out here. Sam is going to run on to them Alder Islands in time for the rising of the shells. I reckons he'll make a tidy fortune out of it all. It's a fair deal."

I looked at Duke, and suddenly we understood each other. It was the end of one way of life, and the beginning of another.

The first time I saw myself in the hospital mirror I did not believe it. I was nineteen and a half. Yet looking at me was the face of an old, shriveled-up woman. My hair was dank and straight, my cheeks sunken right in', my eyes dull. It was not possible! No, no, this could not be me! But it was! I put my hands to my face and sobbed. I sat down and did not dare look up for a long while. I think that was the moment Sam died in my heart. I was so terrified with what I saw; all I could think of was to survive and live, just a little longer.

Later, there was a knock at my door. I was putting on some lipstick, and making an effort to smile. Duke came into my room carrying a brown paper parcel.

"Oh yus, what's this? Bit of lipstick, bit of paint, makes a little lady really what she ain't!" He laughed and lightly patted my shoulder. "Good to see it! Damned bloody good to see it, ducks. Time you was getting back on yer pins. Now, you all set to leave the magnificent Larde 'Orspital? Doc is off blind drunk some place, so we might as well push when we are ready. Take yer time, Ma'am, take yer time."

"Where are we going?" I returned to my make up. Duke was a deep friend. Like a hand out of the dark, or a bridge in very dangerous waters.

Someone you trust and know has been sent at this moment.

"Going? Got to go to my palatial residence, that's where. I got a lot of your clobber up there, too. Sam leaves me your mink coat. Blimey, one hundred and ten in the shade ain't no time to wear mink, but he leaves it, in case. Also, he leaves you these 'ere, in case."

"In case? In case of what?" I turned and looked at Duke.

"Like he said, never know. He might hit a rock, get beached some place with no ways out. He might be gone half a year. Sam was worried about you, and about you being stranded, so he left all of this stuff. He'll be back for you, don't worry about that. Here, these are yours. I took special care of 'em."

Duke handed me the parcel and I knew instantly what it was. In the wrapping was my jewel case. I slowly undid the paper and opened the case. There was my diamond bracelet, the gold watch, all of my necklaces, and wrapped in white tissue were two of the small shells Duke had brought to our yacht. I was crying and I looked up at the mirror to see the ghastly old woman with running mascara, smeared rouge, rough hair.

"I got to survive, Duke. I have got to survive," I sobbed.

"Ma'am, Ma'am, listen, listen ducks, you are safe. It ain't no life out there for you. You're city, and class, and nothing like all of that out there. Didn't yer know that? He ain't deserted yer, but be best if he did. I tells yer, people kill each other and calls it for love."

"I know, I know," I stifled my sobs. "But I got to survive, Duke. I can't see how, that's all. I just can't see how."

"Come on, get the war-paint on again. Soon as you gets yer strength back, why, you'll be a different girl. Then we can hop down to Perth and I gets my books, and you can see the big city. Come on, let's walk out of this place. 'Orspitals always give me the proper creeps, they do. Best way is to walk out as soon and as quick as you can, before they comes to carry yer out. Come along, Ma'am; let's get home to some good cooking."

Australia has many vast and wonderful beaches. This one was so perfect it was a dream world. I swam from the coral. Here the waves were bouncing with a great thunder and a sparkle of white diamonds in the afternoon air. One knocked me over, but a young surfer was close and we waded up. It had been three and a half weeks since I came out of the hospital. I was feeling so wonderful I had shrugged off the past few months as some kind of a nightmare.

"Hey, barbecue is ready soon, Diana!" Duke called to me from the white of the sand dunes. Here, his fat blond wife and their many kids were camped like a ragged tribe of primitive people. Duke's wife, Nora, was a simple, plump woman.

"Come on, ducks, get fed!" Nora shouted at me with a wave of her great, fat arm. "You gotta put weight on, ye know."

I came up to the camp and took the towel Nora flung at me. They both were busy turning the ribs over on their beach fire, then both stopped and looked up at me.

"Well, she's got a sexy figure-you're right." Nora announced. "And she is nineteen, like you said she was. You want to leave that man, Diana. He ain't for you. He'll bury you next time, if you ever gets back with him."

"Ahh, shush!" Duke told his wife. "Girl's got to make up 'er own mind about things like that, so she has. But you listen to what Nora says, Diana. There's a lot of truth in it."

"Man ain't got no right to do that to any woman! Here, Duke, you know what you gone and done?" Nora suddenly shrieked at her husband.

"No-have I spoilt the sauce?"

"You know what you done!" Nora shouted.

"What I done?"

"You done it again, that's what; it's another!" Nora sat down and started serving out the ribs.

"Another? Gawd-stone-me! Not another!" Duke looked shocked.

"Another what? What is it? They smell very good." I knelt down with them and felt hungrier than I had ever done in all my life.

"She's gonna have another." Duke announced sadly. "It ain't my fault. All we need is another baby!"

"I said eight was enough, and now we're getting the eleventh." Nora sniffed and looked suddenly smug. "He's only got half a lung left, yer know, and yet he produces kids like they was going out of fashion. I warns yer-I warns yer, Duke!"

"Ain't my fault. If you'd woken up in time."

"I never wake up. You do it in yer sleep too!" Nora said very accusingly.

"It happens, so it happens." Duke sighed. "I got four years philosophy to study, and we keep on getting more and more of them. Blimey, we'll end up by populating the entire Northwest."

"You make love in yer sleep and yer don't give me no warning; it ain't fair. Here, Diana, help yourself. I hope it's a girl this time. I'm sick of men and sick of boys. I want a baby girl this time. Maybe we can call it Diana. You look pretty; you look real pretty now. I would never have guessed you were so beautiful. Ain't she real beautiful, Duke?"

"Yes, yes, but she won't be if she goes back with 'im!"

"That's true. When you flying down to Perth, Diana?" Nora asked me as we started eating.

I had already made my decision. To leave here was to finish my marriage. But to continue my marriage, I knew instinctively, would be the end of me. I had no choice, really. "In a couple of days time. Are your books in Perth now, Duke?" I spoke quietly, watching the children swarming over the dunes towards us and food.

"Yus, ducks, been there a week now. O-keydokey, we'll fly down to Perth day after tomorrer. I'll tell Sam when he gits back, if he ever gits back, you was too ill to stay. It's true, in its way."

"You tell him he shouldn't have no wife if he don't know how to treat a woman proper," Nora announced bluntly.

"Gawd, we got a tribe to feed. I don't know how I'll manage while you're away, Duke."

"Only be a couple a' days, girl, and I shall be back after seeing our gal here on her way 'ome."

Nora laughed.

It was a brilliant golden and blue day, with the vast ocean dancing away on the beach so freely. I did not feel I was running away. I had done my best. There was nothing more to it than that. In the end, a girl has to survive.

Perth is really a quiet town, very beautiful and with a vast hinterland that goes thousands of miles across a great continent. It is an easy city, but to me it was terrifying. I suddenly seemed to be absolutely surrounded by people. After months and months of nothing but ocean, sky, rocky coasts and deserted islands, the pressure of even an easy city like Perth was astonishing, terrifying, in its way. I was very glad to have Duke with me. In his quiet, sad, and shabby

'out-back' style, he was a great help. There was nothing sexual between us. I think Duke was complete, as a family man, as a father, as a desert philosopher. I would have slept with him for company. But I knew the idea would shock his Australian Victorian morality. So I slept alone in my hotel bed, and worked out what to do with my life.

The more I walked about Perth, looked into shops, went to the beauty parlors, the more I was certain I was right. I looked at the great Swann River, flowing out towards the sea, and it seemed to tell me that I was right. I had to go home, back to England, back to London.

"So yer made yer mind, up, eh," Duke said on the third day as he was packing to go home. "That's fair enough! You gives Sam a good run, ducks. Ain't no life for a woman with the wrong man out there. Best chuck it and git 'ome to yer own folks. Blimey, I got a stack and a half of books. I never knew philosophy went that far back! How you gonna get home-fly, or the boat?"

"I'm going to fly to Cape Town, and then take the Union Castle line back to Southampton. In that way, Sam will never know which direction I went in."

The saddest moment was parting with Duke. He was such a quiet man, with his golden hair and his young face. He was Australia, in some strange way, and could not fit in any other place.

He smiled wanly at me as we stood by the airport gate.

"I'd stay and see you off, Diana, ducks. But if I hang about any city, I starts to git the cough. I daren't risk it. Gawd, but South Africa, and London, them's places I always wanted to get to some time or other. Funny, how when you're a young bloke, you have ideas of travelling the world. Specially us people, here, down-under. Why, the old walk-about is a great tradition. Kids today gits up and goes all over the world before they're twenty five. Me, I never been no place except Sydney and the desert. I guess I'm stuck up there for good, now. Nora's a great gal, ain't she? Sticking with me like that. I needs her like I needs my right arm, and she's good about that. Lucky, finding my Nora, I was. You're looking better, Diana, lots better. Be six months before you wash that skinniness out of you, all of that."

The local airliner was filling and the announcer was calling off the stops. They sounded strange-Briggs Defeat, Lake Bitter Disappointment, Dead Cow Landing, Larde Jetty, Mort's Place-names that brought a shuffle of out-backs heading for the plane.

"I ain't gonna say goodbye, ducks." Duke winked at me. "S'long, gal. When he comes to me, I'll tell him you're gone. Where, why, and how, that's nothing to do with me. Look us up, kiddo, look us up, one day."

Standing by the wire fence, I stayed until the plane was a speck heading high to the north. A great loneliness fell about me as the sound of the plane died in the sky. Turning, I walked slowly away. It was time I started for home.

George was due at eight o'clock and I was very nervous. It was four months since I had arrived back in London. I had come up from Southhampton, got myself an apartment, raised some money, bought a car, taken a holiday in Paris. All of this time I did not have a man. I avoided men, even to the point of being rude to them. In a way, I was getting over my marriage. I was keeping myself for myself. I had no sexual desires; I was too thin, and too nervous. But as spring came to London, I felt the whole world was blossoming into lilac and green just only for me!

George hovered about in the distance. He was an old faithful. In fact he was so faithful I had completely forgotten he even existed. But he heard I was in London, after a couple of months, and slowly I accepted going out a few times with him. George knew I had been married, but he never mentioned it. I think he was in the throes of the end of an affair himself. And I was determined not to go overboard on some rebound. Besides, what did I want of sex? I had hard enough times just straightening myself out. George was moody, quiet, a brooder, and lazy. He was not the antithesis of Sam, but he was a totally different person. I loved him for nothing. George was nothing, a gap, a rest, an acceptance that my way of life had to go on, eventually.

"Hello, Diana, I managed to get a couple of stall seats, we'll have to hurry." For once, George had done the right thing. We were off to Covent Garden, then on to a restaurant for dinner, and by one in the morning we came drifting back to my apartment door.

"I suppose I had best get off home." George stood and smiled. "It's been a delightful evening, Diana."

"Come in for a night-cap," I said quietly.

"Yes, it would be nice. I can't stay long." George had not even kissed me. I felt a slight irritation arising from his very over-protective manner. I did not wish to have an uncle. Or did I? Leading the way into my apartment, I sighed to myself. It was another decision to be made. "Pour yourself a drink. I'll just change into something more comfortable. My shoes were killing me all through the last act."

George ceremoniously put down his hat and coat. He looked slowly about my main room and nodded. "Nice place, Diana. Very good. Can I fix you something?" He called after me.

"Martini, I think, dry."

For some reasons I stripped, and looked at myself naked in my bedroom mirror. My figure was back to normal, almost. My eyes were clear and bright. I nodded, slipped on a dressing gown, loosened my hair and slowly came back to the room where George sat sipping his scotch and looking at an evening programme. "That's better. I feel relaxed and civilized." I accepted the glass he silently held out to me. "Thank you, George, dear."

"Hope it's what you like. I see you are down to your last three olives." George made room for me on the couch.

It was an excellent martini. I laughed. All at once it was all pleasant, and-exciting. "I shall buy some more, George. You make a very good martini."

"Thank you. That deserves a kiss." He put his drink down, placed his arm about me, and we kissed. His tongue came to touch mine, and from the smooth move of his experienced ways, I felt slightly less nervous.

"George, let's talk." I sat up again.

"What about?"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty eight, be an old man of twenty-nine soon. A bored second son with a business to run and a mother who thinks all of her sons are her slaves. No, seriously, I am happy, but I have been through, well, a situation. I think you understand. I am looking for-companionship. Relaxation and companionship! By God, I ran my legs off for that girl, and she treated me like nothing! I suppose I am the kind of man a woman does not notice very much. What do you think?"

"You are kind, good looking, easy to get along with. I like you very, very much." I lay my head upon his arm and shoulder. Small pangs of desire were definitely in me now. I had thought all of that finished, gone, never to return again. Hey there-orgy girl! Here is a man and she sits shivering beside him! I smiled at the old idea in this new setting.

"I suppose I had better go home," George announced, finishing off his drink.

"Thank you for the wonderful evening." I stood up with him and we went to my door. George collected his coat and hat and came close to me. He stopped and smiled.

"It's been jolly good, Diana, no competition, just nice and pleasant." He suddenly put his hat and coat down again. "You know, when you first came home-now you look more and more beautiful. I think you are the most beautiful thing I have seen for a long while. When you first came home you were haunted, and so thin. I felt very sorry for you. Now you are one of the most desirable creatures I know in town." He kissed me, and his hand came beneath my dressing gown, onto my naked breasts. I quivered and stiffened for a moment. There was definitely a small point of panic in me.

"George, be careful, please, be tender," I whispered to him.

"I had better go," George said, but did not release me.

"Not if you don't want to," I told him. George picked me up with one sweep and I laughed as he strode so firmly across the room.

"Where are we going?" I cried in mock surprise.

"To bed, to love, to stay," George announced as we entered my bedroom. The comer of the bed was already turned down, and there was a single lamp lit. George placed me most carefully down on the bed, then stripped off his clothes, shut the door, and came back towards me. I was slightly, primly shocked-and delighted at being so shocked to see his solid cock sticking right out before him. Here was a new lover-at last!

I was stiff, that was the trouble. The instant George lay down on the bed with me, a deep shock came into my heart. This was not Sam! It was a completely stupid, irrational idea, but I could not help it. For nearly two years now, I had loved and been made love to by one man, my husband, Sam. Now, here was a different man leaning over and kissing my breasts, caressing my thighs, placing his hand down to my vagina, and prying my legs open as his fingers sought my love bud and worked it into a tinkling electrical point. I was panting hard, and suddenly a wild protest surged through me.

"George, no, no, please George! I can't-I have, have changed my mind. I mustn't let you. Please, I shall scream or shout, or go mad." Yet my hands were clawing into his back and my head was tossing from side to side as shudders of desire made my body rise and quiver and open, open, open for him wider all the time.

"Diana, lovely girl, wonderful, wonderful girl." George held hard onto me. I lowered my hand to feel his cock, to try and stroke the passion out of him, to try and make him come without taking me. It was all a frenzy, and I was too stiff, too frightened. This was a strange man. I did not know his body. Suddenly George got hold of both my hands and rammed them hard right above my head, over the pillows my head lay upon.

"You want me, you want me!" George demanded.

"I don't know. I-can't say! George, oh, George. I just can't-can't stop you, and yet I don't want to. What shall I do? George, oh, what shall I do?" I sobbed out passionately.

Then I felt his cock prodding about the entrance of my love nest. I was moist and surging about. George's cock suddenly rippled into me, deeply and fully. I could feel a man possessing me for the first time for months and months. I gave a gasp and could not move. It was a surprise, a shock. I had not had cock for so long in me, I was overwhelmed by the size, the pressure, the new sparkling emotions that burst like a joyous tide all through me now.

"George, fuck me. Fuck me, George. I need it, I need it so much-ooh!"

I could feel how strange it was to have another man, and also to have a man loving me after all this time. I was lost in the orgasm that broke through me almost instantly. George was good medicine. He was just what I had to have.

"George, oh, marvelous George, keep on, and on-all night."

George was swaying in and out, and he was enjoying himself as much as I was. I laughed and held his shoulders. Loving was what I was made for. Not going around an empty wilderness of ocean and sky. I needed men, more and more men.

"Yes, oh, yes,-yes! George, I am coming!" I cried out and sobbed in relief as the whole of my body answered his every loving stroke. It was so good, to have a man, to have his cock, to have the hot sweltering loving wet between us and to yield and yield and not worry or be frightened or be alone. Never again would I be alone. Never again would I sleep by myself. Not if I could help it.

"Diana-what a glorious body. I love you. I love you." George pressed his loins right into my crotch and ground away furiously. I could feel his come spurting and spurting into me. It was an orgiastic climax that robbed me of all my senses. I was lost in that delicious sensual world of man and woman. I was back in the feeling of having a man complete me, and knowing that I was necessary to him, each and every loving stroke was so necessary to him, and to me. If George had been a nonentity before, now he loomed all so large and solid and surging into me and my life. George was the ideal man to break my lock. He was as mild and as defensive as I was; we needed each other at this particular moment of our lives.

"George, that was super," I whispered as we cuddled close and hot and wet. "It was wonderful, darling. I so needed it. You have no idea how I did need you!"

"You were damned tight, Diana. Were you a virgin or something? I thought you had married some lusty adventurer type, but you were as tight as hell." George chuckled, then added, "I love you very much. It was rather nice, come to think of it. Anyway, it's completely removed her from my mind. Damned if I shouldn't have done this before. Always best to start something new, to get rid of the old, what?"

"No, you have it the wrong way around, George," I murmured to him. "Or at least, I think you have. But we are good for each other, and we must stay together, a long, long while."

"Give me a little while, and I shall try again," George murmured as he dozed beside me.

I slept deeply, for the first time in weeks. I had not realized that I was missing full sleep before. But George had released the sexual tensions out of my body, and I suddenly fell asleep with him beside me.

It was dark when I awoke, and I felt a man's hand sliding up my thigh, over my loins. The fingers slowly came into my hair, and gently searched until they found my slit. I was half asleep, but I knew it was the man I had had earlier. George, that was who it was. I smiled to my self and relaxed as his fingers lightly touched and began to thrill me. It was a delicious feeling, to awaken and drift into love making. I could sense my body slowly flowing for him and slowly yielding step by step. His desire to possess me again was something that rose and trembled in the darkness between us. Then George came over me and his cock slid into me. I lifted my thighs and locked my legs about him, allowing him to slide deeper and deeper.

We stayed like this a long, long while. It was perfection. I knew George's body by now, and I was able to rest at the right angle for us both. George sighed and kissed my breasts in the warm dark. He played and caressed and told me how much he needed me. It was lovely to be wanted. Lovely to be held in this loving position. I was so in this sexual delight, in this dream world of being loved, I would have liked it to last for ever and ever.

"I want to come, in you, again," George announced.

"Yes, yes, darling, if you wish to."

"I had to wait, and wait, and now it seems it was you I had been waiting for. Oh, you delicious girl, what a nice tight fit and what a lovely active body you have. The most beautiful thing." George was saying it all over and over again. But I enjoyed listening to it as he began to stroke faster and faster. I listened for as long as I could. Then suddenly I heard a strange crooning note. Up to then I was some kind of a side onlooker. But now I realized that the crooning note was my own voice. I was sighing and calling to each love stroke that George so deliciously and delicately surged into me. It was a long, slow, and delicate loving that built up and up. I was lost in this loving. I was lost in the way George so smoothly crept further and further into me, and brought to me a tippling peak that seemed to send me over and over. I remembered the golden surf of that vast Australian beach, when the wave had picked me up and tossed me over and over, and yet it was George and his loving and his pouring cock that surged and made me float to such a wild, delightful freedom. I knew it was close and tight. I gasped out. I held onto him. I had to cling and bite and shout. George was Joving me with a hard strength that made my legs kick free.

I was consumed with a wild free passion now. I was rid of Sam, and the life of the wilds. I was rid of everything except my need for loving. Oh, yes, I would fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck. That is what I would do from now on. I would never, never be able to get enough of men, and bed and fulfillment. Perhaps I was really trying to prove something to myself. I did not know. I did not care. It was what I had been made for, and it was what I would live for. I do not think George ever realized what he was doing to me, this moment of dawn love-making. But it was so. I could never be the same again. It was as simple as that.

I was shocked by George's wild come. He spurted so deeply into me; it was red hot and we both cried out for the glorious joy of our own ecstasies!

Then I was asleep. Into a deep therapeutic pit of complete black velvet dark I tumbled and turned and fell. There were voices calling to me. George was speaking, Sam was whispering. There was some kind of ocean scent. The great tideways of life had shifted for me. The faces of Trudy and that brute in the stables-but all spinning away. They would never be able to harm me ever again. I was certain of that.

"I love you. I love you," someone was murmuring.

"Yes, I know, pet, I know," I answered into the sea-drift dark.

And yet, I was going to be an orgy girl! I would not be faithful to one man, not ever! I was determined on that, even as timid George brought me to one of the greatest sexual climaxes I had ever known. I would not be his alone. I could not risk that. I never wanted to belong to any single man, never again! For, in many ways I had learned my lesson. Orgy girls are for play and for loving; orgy girls are for ever changing parties and good times all the time. They are delicate creatures in their way. They have to be loved and looked after, and kept in pretty clothes. This was the lesson my marriage had taught me.

George was nice. He was a good, quiet lover and looked after me properly. I needed George, who had so little demands to make on me. Sexually I could keep him happy, very easily. George would do for the time being.

In a while I would get back to the circuit of parties and fun. It would be the gay life for me, from now on. I knew how to take care of myself, and that I would do.

So from that first night, and the good fucking I had with quiet George, my marriage was over as far as I was concerned. I am not the type to settle for the kitchen sink and a brace of kids. I ought to have known that a good time ago.

Two weeks later, I phoned Sir Peters.

"Hello there, Diana! What a good surprise. I say, I'm off to a country party next week-end and we are dashed short of gals for it all.-Be nothing wild, just a friendly get-together, you know what, free and easy. Gloria and Yolanda will be there, those two charming little minxes miss nothing, you know. Good, do come along. I shall pick you up at about six Friday evening. Yes, it's almost like that one down at Woodlands Hall, but actually quite a different crowd. Dashed glad to hear from you. Thought you were buried in the colonies or some such place. Chinchin, Diana."

That was it. I was back on the party circuit. I went across and looked at myself in the mirror. I was better. Still not the same old Diana. But certainly nothing like that ghostly, gaunt old woman who had stood and wept before the mirror of the hospital at Larde Jetty. Much better now than I looked in Perth too, come to that. I was filling out again. My cheeks had almost lost that hollow look. I was no longer an 'out-back' ghost. It was as my good friend, Duke, had said to me, in time I would be back to my shape, and get most of my looks back.

The telephone rang as I stood there brushing the gloss back into my hair. It was Yolanda. She had heard from Sir Peters that I was back in town.

"Hello, darling, thought you had gone out to educate the natives!" Yolanda began with a light barb. "He was delicious, Sam, but I absolutely wept for you; such a sexy man, and he always treats his wives so harshly. Didn't you know? You were number three! One died. I believe from some horrid fever thingummy. You have no idea how lucky you were to escape from that tropical bluebeard. I know he got the boat from his second wife. Pete tells us you are coming down to Lovelace Hall, Diana. It's so good to think we shall all be back in circulation again, together. I want to tell you of Maurice, my sweet Mauri. He will be there, and I do hope he doesn't get attracted by you. He's from South Africa, and I have high hopes-the city, Johannesburg, dear, not the wilds. South Africans are highly civilized, and very nice people. Anyway, you'll meet Mauri, but I think Pete has great plans for you and himself. See you at the Lovelaces, darling."

I smiled to myself as I put the receiver back on the stand. It rang again with Gloria calling this time. We had a long talk. I was feeling myself to be right back in the swinging, living world again, thank goodness.

But there were a few moments when I missed Sam terribly. One does not marry a person and go with him into his life, and just shed it like that! I knew him too well, and in my heart of hearts I wished him well. His was an eternal quest, pushing on and on for new treasures. I somehow knew that I might have been like that myself. Certainly my parents were. My father had worked in every country of the world, and my mother had gone with him to each and all of them. I was not their type. It did not appeal to me at all. But I regretted this. I wish I had been. I would have been as excited as Sam had been over discoveries, and reefs, and old rusty things-which really meant nothing to me. And it was my loss. I missed Sam, and the feel of him. He had been all man! In fact, if it had not been that we had to part because of my illness, I often think I would have gone on and on with him, until perhaps I died or perished, or just faded away. I would have been faithful to him. He was that type of man; one never thought of any other way. But, he was not for me, not my type, not for my life. I had to accept the truth that I had to survive, and that meant the end of my mar: riage with Sam. And this being so, what else was there but to become a wild, fully-committed orgy girl. Living life to the phallic hilt each and every possible minute!

I busily prepared for the week-end down at Lovelace Hall. I had a new transparent nightie, and slippers, and everything else a girl needs to take care of herself and make good. George was away. In any case, that was over. George had done me very nicely. He had served his purpose. Now I was ready for battle.

Or perhaps I should say I was ready for the next orgy.

And that was to be at Lovelace Hall, if Sir' Peters' rakish way of heading for the right places for such things was accurate. I had never found him to miss anything, so Lovelace Hall it would be.