Chapter 11

HER WHITE THIGHS ENTWINED HIS BACK....

Jean parked her car in front of her apartment. Donna started to climb out, and Jean touched her hand.

"Honey, I'm getting an awful headache, and maybe I wouldn't be very good for you...."

Donna frowned. Her dark eyes narrowed. "You're welching out, aren't you?"

They had said hardly a word after gathering up their things and leaving the wooded meadow. Jean's mind was in a turmoil. The burst of passion, there in the brush, had somehow drained her. She was ashamed of herself and couldn't help it.

"I'm just tired," Jean said, trying not to be angry.

"Don't you think I deserve some fun, too?" Donna asked, dryly. Something lay between them now, and Jean couldn't decide what it was. A barrier-put up by the picture of people having their pleasure the right way?

"Maybe tomorrow," Jean said vaguely.

"I need it now, honey!" Donna urged. "Come on ... it won't take me very long...."

Suddenly Jean knew she couldn't do it. The other's lilac perfume didn't tantalize her senses any more. Donna looked more like a boy, a pervert, at every passing moment.

"I can't!" Jean said.

Donna's lips curled. "You're a damned square, after all!" she flared. "I suppose you envied that redhead...."

"Yes, I did! Do you want me to drive you home?"

"Never mind!" Donna snapped, jumping out of the front seat. "I can call a cab." She leaned in the opened window. "Go on back to your filthy men and their hairy bodies! I'm fed up with you!"

She backed away to the sidewalk and strode angrily down the street. Jean sighed.

The sun was shining, the wooded slopes a-round the town looked green and inviting, as usual, but her day was shot. She felt a dullness in her loins. Not even the prospect of causing Colleen and Sam more trouble lifted her spirits.

She needed a shower, a rest. She wanted to wash away the lilac perfume, the evidence of her unnatural lovemaking.

Had her brief association with Carl changed her so much? Was she really 'square,' after all?

Well, she had chased Carl away, and mw Donna. The sooner she left Troy the better. Too many conflicts here. Maybe Colleen and Sam deserved each other. Her father was too obsessed with Colleen to ever drop her, barring some catastrophe.

Jean liked pranks, but not violence.

She left her car and walked drearily toward her apartment. The beer she had consumed was sour in her stomach.

I had my fun, but I'm sure if I hadn't watched the man and the redhead, I wouldn't have been nearly so thrilled. I hope I never see Donna again!

Carl Zeller paced the floor of his apartment. He had made arrangements with the new owner of the mill to haul logs; his equipment was all moving, and from a business standpoint he was doing very well.

Now that he was alone, he could think of nothing but Jean Sampson; in fact, he was surprised that he had been able to function so well at his work with the tantalizing image of Jean's face and figure in his mind.

The evening with her had been marvelous-until the end. At the drive-in movie he had been so excited he couldn't remember any of the damned show at all. Kissing her had made him want to take her to bed, instantly-but his idiotic shyness had spoiled things again.

Whenever he thought of the clingy hotness of her mouth he groaned to himself. Why hadn't he reached over and touched her alluring breasts? Why hadn't he slipped his hands down on her thighs, so attractively opened? Why in hell hadn't he accepted her invitation to go inside her apartment?

She was so softly rounded, sweetly feminine, that it made his loins burn to think of her.

He remembered the times when he had slipped into a whore house to rid himself of his lust, and he cursed to himself. He looked at the telephone again, wondering if he should call her, try to make it up to her with another date.

A long evening stretched ahead. Lately he had gotten into the habit of going down to the Troy Elks lodge and playing cards or pool. Weekends he usually went fishing; some fine mountain streams nearby.

But nothing he could think of interested him tonight.

Somehow, he had to get over the idea that nice girls didn't go for a little sex out of wedlock. It was old-fashioned!

He knew where the Troy whore house was; the foreman on his main logging crew had told him. A new young redhead and a classy blonde had just been brought in by the madam. Troy had had whores for over forty years.

He remembered the bitterness of his breakup with Edna, his former wife. He realized he had spoiled her, pampered her. He had idolized her, and she had told him, toward the end, that he made love like a school boy.

Thankfully, there had been no children.

He remembered the day he had come home early, to the big home he had built for her near Rendon, Washington. She had been completely naked in the living room, and a friend of his, also naked, had been on top of her-in the middle of the floor. She had never been nude for him, except in the bedroom, with the lights out.

He had watched them, hearing Edna's cries of excitement, watched her white thighs around her lover, and he had backed out of the house, shocked, almost horrified.

Forget the ugly past and think about the future!

Should he go down to the Rex Roons and take on a young girl and think about Jean while he poured his virility into a cold, paid bed partner?

No.

He went to the phone. He had already memorized her number, knew it by heart. It was high time he started acting like a man instead of a mouse. He recalled Jean's parting words, and he cringed. She was a woman, not a girl....

He dialed, his hand sweaty on the receiver. The faraway ringing sounded like thunder in his ears. For the hundredth time he thought of her softness, the ripe roundness of her hips, the sweet wiggle as she walked....

She's not too big for me. I like a girl with some size, even if a lot of men don't.

On the third ring she answered. Even her voice merely saying 'hello' jarred his senses. So feminine....

"This is Carl," he managed. "I want to apologize...."

"I'm sorry," she answered, coolly. "I'm not in the mood. Get one of these local gals and hold hands with her."

He felt a trace of anger. "Did you want me to treat you like a floozy-on our first date?"

"Well, you could have tried, at least!" she snapped.

He couldn't understand his sudden temper, but the words jumped out of his mouth.

"You must have had a lot of experience!"

She laughed. "I have-with red-blooded men. We're worlds apart, Carl. You need a nice little shy broad. I'm going back to California in a few days where a girl can let go."

He swallowed a curse. Why did she infuriate him so?

"Hell," he growled. "I can show you a few things! I was trying to be a gentleman...."

"Well, I'm afraid I'm not a lady, Carl. I suppose you want another date so you can show me how big and manly you are! I don't want any big, glorious entanglements. Besides, I'm kind of pooped out, tonight. I had a lot of fun out in the bushes this afternoon. Now, go away, and don't bother me...."

The whine of the dial tone rang in his ear.

He slammed the receiver down and swore. No girl had ever made him so wildly enraged. 'Out in the bushes.' I'll show her!

He walked back and forth, simmering. The idea came almost of its own volition. 'Get one of those local gals' Jean had suggested. Well, why the hell not?

His new office girl, Nita Brooks, had been giving him plenty of come-on. A blonde too. Nicely curved, about twenty-two or so. She even had the plump kind of curves he liked.

He had always made it a rule not to mix business and pleasure, but Nita was the only gal he could think of at the moment. She wasn't local; she had no family attachments in town-and she wasn't even a very good secretary. If business kept coming the way it had been lately, he would have to replace her, anyway. She wasn't really pretty enough to have the local boys panting-but she did have curves and enough sex appeal.

He had her phone number at the office.

"I'm so glad you called me!" Nita gushed, leaning across the small table for two in Troy's leading night spot, The Blue Note. She wore a skirt and blouse, and the sheen of her blonde hair reminded him somewhat of Jean's.

Get her out of your mind, he told himself.

He had taken a couple of drinks before picking her up, something he seldom did, alone, and he felt the liquor heating his body, his interest.

Nita's blouse was open at the throat, and he could see the seductive cleavage between her oversized breasts. Well, he preferred girls with good breasts, something a man could get his hands on. One of his favorite whores, near Ren-don, when he had lived there, had possessed tremendous breasts. Of course, her nipples had never awakened under his mouth. All pretense . .

Still, a man had to have his hands on woman-flesh once in a while.

I'll lick this damned shyness if it kills me, he thought.

He touched his knee against her leg, under the table, and she returned the pressure. They were talking about things at the office, happenings around town, but her eyes were giving him the go-ahead signs.

He suggested a dance, and she went along, willingly. The floor was crowded, dimly lit. He wished she wouldn't giggle so much, but at least she was pleasant. She fitted snugly in his arms.

"I wondered when you were going to ask me for a date," she said, responding to the tightening of his arm around her waist. Her jutty breasts billowed excitingly against his chest; he was getting hard already.

He decided to try some words he had never used with a date. Why the hell be backward? The liquor gave him courage.

"I like those short skirts you wear to work," he said.

She giggled. "I thought you noticed!" Nothing to it!

"Those low-cut blouses, too," he went on. Swell! I'm kind of plump-and large. You like that?"

"Hell, yes." He squeezed her, growing bolder. "I like a lot of cushioning."

She giggled. "You always act so reserved ... I'm surprised at you!"

"I've decided to change," he said.

"I'm glad! You could give the gals around this town quite a thrill if you wanted to. But I'm glad you called me."

It went along like that, and they had more drinks. He pushed his knee forward under the table, and she pressed her nyloned knees snugly to his. He looked at the promise of her fresh young mouth and he took the big step.

"Like to come up to my apartment?"

Her thighs tightened on his knee. Her hand squeezed his. She giggled again.

"I was afraid you weren't going to ask me, Carl!"

His chest swelled. Hell, he was almost there-like falling off the proverbial log!