Chapter 1
It was June, a time of long days and short nights, a time to shrug off the confining work of the long winter and spring, a time to be restless, a time to dream...
Sandra's eyes stared at the Economics text, dutifully obeying their owner's command, but they did not see. The words unrolled facts and figures about the Depression of the Thirties, the effects of the Civil War on the South's economy, U.S. tariff laws and countless other bits of intelligence. But the messages were not relayed from her eyes to her brain.
She sat lazily at the small window-desk, her elbows propping her chin. From time to time, she caught herself staring down at the quiet street with its murmur of traffic and its newly green trees and shrubs.
Sighing, she forced her gaze back to the book, a wheat-production chart swimming under her eyes. Damn! she thought. Why was she caught with such a late final? Already the apartments were half empty, and even at that moment she could hear someone in the hall wrestling with boxes, moving out.
She sighed. Two more days, and Professor For-sythe and Econ 121-B would be out of her mind for at least three months. In two days she would be free, but free to do what?
Of course she had tried to make plans. Her parents had begged her to come home for the summer, her father had promised her a job in the mill. But she had no intention of letting them gather her back into the fold, especially after she had deliberately selected a university a thousand miles away. Sandra wanted freedom, and she was getting it.
Then there was Bobby. If he had his way she'd spend her summer in Los Angeles, right in her own little apartment, either picking up a few extra credits at summer school or working at any dull job she might manage to find at this late date. The chances of obtaining work in the city were terribly slim, anyhow, since thousands of others had already snapped them up.
But Bobby didn't care about that. He didn't want his girl to stray off to some place where their cozy relationship might be threatened. He was as grasping as her parents, always worried about her leaving, always wanting her to settle down, to be patient, not to rock the boat.
Sandra had tried mightily to break away from the lure of her parents, from Bobby and from the dull routine of a tiny apartment in Westwood, just a few blocks from the campus.
She had written letters all spring, offering her talent and training as a junior in college to national parks, private resorts, camps and lodges up and down the coast. All of them, it seemed, had filled their summer employee rosters long before Sandra decided to make herself available.
Now, she thought, she was stuck-condemned either to Bobby or to her parents until September. September ... that month held no excitement, either. True, it would mark the beginning of her final year, but it would be a long year, for she was fed up with college.
More classes, more books, more giggling girlfriends, more adolescent boys anxious to pet in cars, at the beach or-heaven forbid!-in her own apartment. Sandra had outgrown life on the campus. That was why she had hoped to get away to the mountains somewhere, where she could get rid of the crowd, could think ahead.
Now her thoughts were on the more distant future, on life after college, on her career. She had to smile at the thought. Her career ... that was a joke. She had run against a stone wall in her efforts to get a start, to find a foothold in her chosen field. She had known it would be difficult, but she had somehow thought that, when producers and agents saw her looks and her talent, they would be delighted to give her a tryout.
The most encouraging thing she had heard was, "Don't rush your career, sweetheart. Finish school, knock around the sticks a few years, then come back. Maybe, just maybe, then we'll have something for you."
If that was the way it was going to be, she certainly wasn't going to stop living in the meantime. No, sir-Sandra Albright was going to have fun, excitement, new experiences which would enrich her natural talent ...
She took a deep breath, glancing at her watch. Meanwhile, Sarah Bernhardt, you've got a date with Bobby tonight and with Professor Forsythe the day after tomorrow, she told herself. She snapped the book closed and shoved back her chair, getting up and stretching. Her date would be around in a half hour. It was time she did something to wake herself up.
She opened her closet door so she could peer into the full-length mirror. A pretty girl looked back at her-a girl with long, dark hair, dark eyes which seemed to search the face of everyone they looked at, a short nose and a stubbornly firm chin. The mouth was turned down as a result of four hours with an Economics book, but it was a generous mouth with full lips which had a rich, natural redness.
"You look good enough to me," she said, the loudness of her voice startling her after so long alone. "I don't know why the princes of stage, screen and television aren't pounding on your door."
She wore stretch-pants and a bulky sweatshirt. Half turning, she examined the profile of her bottom, liking its proper fullness and its youthful tilt. She knew Bobby liked it, too. She had had to slap away his hand often enough.
She pulled at her sweatshirt, stretching it over her breasts so she could read the UCLA letters and see the university seal. Her breasts pressed forward, high, full and hard, yet half-smothered under the thick folds.
She crossed her wrists and pulled the sweatshirt over her head, sending her hair every which way. She smoothed it and then looked at herself again. Yes, that was better. Encased in only a brassiere, her breasts looked good. She was proud of them. In her wilder moments, Sandra often wished she could go about in bra and panties, confident that she looked her best when her natural beauty was exposed.
Her skin was deeply tanned from long afternoons at the beach with Bobby. Her shoulders were soft, rounded, inviting, and her tummy was flat and smooth with just a whispering trail of fine, light hairs below her navel.
She pulled at snaps and a zipper and zigzagged out of her stretch-pants, kicking them to the bed. She ran her hands over her slim, curving hips, fingering the sheerness of her panties.
She was a tall girl. Her legs were long and straight, tanned and athletic in appearance. Firm, youthful, strong in the thighs, tapering to slim ankles.
Despite her twenty-one years, despite her willowy, leggy appeal to boys from the time she was fifteen, despite her own warm-blooded compassion and passion, Sandra could still call her body her own. She had never given it to anyone. There had been times through the years when things had almost happened.
There was the boy next door, a hot summer afternoon and the mysterious privacy of his garage. They had explored one another to the accompanimerit of giggles and Sandra had felt a new heat deep inside her adolescent body, but the boy had been mercifully ignorant of the procedures of love and sex.
There had been the high-school halfback, a heavy, stocky youth, who had boasted of his "scores" with a dozen or more girls in their senior class. He might have added Sandra to his list, for her knees weakened when his hands touched her body. But he made the mistake of comparing her thighs with the thighs of several of her girl friends. She was able to close them to him in time.
Then there was Bobby. He had also come close, but he was such an adolescent, such a fumbler! There were times when Sandra wanted to scream at him to take her, to stop his playing, his begging. In short, she wanted him to be a man-masterful, possessive, taking, not asking.
Bobby, although he was Sandra's age, seemed years behind her in maturity. While she had studied worldly subjects like Philosophy, Literature, Logic and Drama, he had buried his nose in his Engineering texts, oblivious to the fast-changing world about them. He was a good person, butagain she sighed-so terribly dull, dull, dull.
As dull as everything about her, she thought, glancing around the room. She had space for a bed, a dresser, a desk and two chairs. A door led to a tiny kitchen and bath. And this, she sighed, had been her life for the past three years.
Dull, dull, dull ... She wanted to scream.
The sound was familiar, and she went to the window, keeping as far back as possible, but peering between the curtains. It was Bobby's aging Ford pulling up to the curb. Then he was leaping out. Of course he didn't wear a necktie, only his usual sport shirt and slacks, which needed pressing.
Sandra moved away from the window and stood waiting, wondering at the wild thoughts which went through her head. What madness was this, standing in the middle of the room, behind an unlocked door, waiting? She looked down at herself, clad only in panties and a brassiere-a bra which seemed to grow fuller and heavier with her thoughts.
She heard him coming up the hall, his footsteps slowing and then stopping. Suppose, through some impulse, he simply opened the door and walked inside. What would she do? She smiled, sucking her lip. It would depend on what he did. But-her shoulders slumped-she knew he wouldn't throw open the door. Not Bobby.
The knock came, and he called her name.
Of course, she could simply call back, "Come in," and see what happened. Again she looked down at herself, wondering if the sight of her like this would ignite him into instant action. She wanted to find out.
But she remembered who she was. She was Sandra Albright, the beautiful daughter of the Hector Albrights of Florence, Oregon, and she would do nothing to shame them. Not here. Not now.
"Just a minute!" she called at last, going to the closet. She pulled out a wrapper and put it on, tying it tightly at her waist, careful to leave a generous expanse of skin exposed at her throat.
She opened the door wide, standing before him, her feet bare, wondering if he could see through her silhouette. "Good evening, Robert," she said with ludicrous formality.
He came in and turned, looking at her, and she fastened her dark, penetrating eyes on his. He was a freckle-faced young man with curly, blonde hair, only an inch taller than Sandra. "Hi," he managed to blurt, a silly grin on his lips.
She closed the door, seeing a look something like alarm cross his face. Good heavens! The greedy ape was frightened. She knew he wanted her. He had tried often enough. But when the time and the place were all too obvious, he turned into a fleeing chicken.
He fled now, going to her desk and sitting down. He fingered her book. "Been hitting it for good old 121-B?"
She went to the bed and climbed on it, sitting at the head, her back against the board. She tucked her feet under her, arranging the wrapper over her legs. "Awful stuff," she complained. After a minute she added, "How was the beach?"
"Crowded and hot. Everybody in school was there."
She thought of the sand and the surf and her delightful bikini, and the late final exam angered her all over again. "When do you start work-Monday?"
He nodded, looking over the desk, then at her. "How about you? No mail again today?"
"No letter today," she sang, picking up the tune of an old song. She smirked. "Perhaps I'll become a streetwalker for the summer."
"Sandy!"
"Why not? They say it's good money. You think I'm worth a hundred dollars a night, Bobby?"
"You're not very funny." He reached into his shirt pocket, taking out a pack of cigarettes. She watched him strike a match, light his cigarette and then inhale, struggling to keep from coughing.
"Throw me the pack, huh?"
He looked at her again and, as he did so, she moved her knee almost unconsciously so that the wrapper fell aside. Knee and thigh peeked out but, what the hell, the whole world saw a great deal more of her when she wore her bikini. What was so different about this? Plenty, girl, an inner voice told her.
"I don't think much of your smoking," he muttered.
She had to laugh. "You're not much good at it yourself, Humphrey Bogart." She scrambled from the bed, showing him the full length of her legs, and brought the other chair to the desk. She set it across from him and sat down, picking up the cigarettes.
She placed one between her lips and leaned forward, waiting, letting her wrapper fall open so he could see into the top of her brassiere. He struck a match, and it wavered as his eyes slid down her throat into the deep, waiting valley.
She got her light and blew the smoke to one side, pulling the wrapper about her again. "Perhaps," she said, deliberately wanting to upset him for some devilish reason, "I should just chuck it all and go home. At least I'd have free board and room."
He shook his head. "What a drag that would be! I hear they're looking for some senior arts people at the library. Part-time work all the way through summer school."
"Goody!" she said, her voice flat. "It has all the excitement of the life of a museum guard." She flicked her fingers over the back of his hand until he pulled it away. Then she flicked the same fingers at the throat of her wrapper, hearing the fabric whisper. He was watching again. "What marvelous excursion have you planned for tonight, Robert?"
"Don't call me Robert!" he snapped, surprising her. "I don't like you making fun of me and everything I do. If I bore you too much, say the word, and I'll pull out. Maybe you'd like me to send over one of the other guys from the dorm."
Abruptly, Sandra was contrite. He was right, of course. She was being a spoiled, bored, unhappy little girl, taking out her frustrations on him. She reached for his hand again, lifting it to her lips, kissing it.
Now he was embarrassed. "I'm sorry as hell, Sandy, but I sure don't want to lose you for three months. Why don't you see them at the library? It's better than working in some lousy amusement park, at least."
She smiled, turning on a real, warm smile, and she saw his resentment melt. "Perhaps I will. The mailman has let me down for weeks now. How I hate myself when I take it out on you!" She sat up, her eyes bright. "Now, what's on tonight's agenda?"
As it turned out, Bobby had very little on his agenda. So they looked through the papers for a while and finally picked what looked like the least boring activity. It was nearby and inexpensive. Sandra shooed Bobby out of her room and shimmied into a pretty summer dress, anyway. Perhaps he would be the only person to see it, but she wanted to feel like a woman, not a tomboy.
So now she sat, her back wedged into the corner of the front seat, her feet tucked under her. She watched the gigantic figure of Kirk Douglas march across the screen and lift Debra Paget down from a wall somewhere in Spain. He put his arms around her and kissed her.
Sandra stirred, looking across at Bobby. He was slouched against the door, his foot up on the edge of the seat, his hand propped under his chin. His eyes followed the action with heavy-lidded interest.
She slid across the seat until her shoulder touched his. He looked down at her, smiled, and looked back at the screen. Tracing her finger lightly over the back of his hand, she whispered, "I'm sorry about being so nasty at the apartment."
"Forget it," he muttered.
She took his arm and draped it around her shoulders, clutching his hand. "I'm so frustrated I've bitched at all my friends the past two weeks."
He looked down at her, touching her cheek. "Don't say 'bitched.' It sounds lousy coming from those lips."
She grinned and turned her face, catching his finger between her teeth. She bit gently and her tongue played with the tip of the finger.
"Hey!" he whispered, straightening, putting his foot back on the floor. "What's going on here?"
She pulled harder at the hand which hung over her shoulders. "What would you like to have going on, slugger?"
He leaned his head down and kissed her lightly on the mouth. At the same time she pressed the back of his hand until it touched her breast. She felt him stiffen, then his fingers closed around her softness, squeezing lightly. She felt her own body stiffen.
He stopped, and the hand hesitated and then removed itself from her breast. She opened her eyes, looking into his face, seeing his indecision, his need for encouragement. Poor little boy!
Biting back a sarcastic complaint, she said instead, "Say, tiger, you come on strong."
She placed her lips on the side of his neck, just under his ear, and felt a shudder roll through him again. His hand returned to the breast, pumping until she felt it swell inside her bra. She pushed lightly at the hand, urging it to the valley between her breasts and it fell into the deep cleft, wiggling softly under the tight edge of her brassiere.
The fingers fought for room, worming deeper, and Sandra wanted to remind him of the buttons which paraded down her front and about the catch at the back of her brassiere. But he worked hard, and at last a forefinger poised and then dug at the tip of her breast.
It hurt for a moment. Bobby was so clumsy! But she liked it, needed it, and the nipple tried to stiffen, to jerk alert, to dig right back at him...
"Coffee, ice cream tonight, folks?"
They jumped as though a bucket of ice-water had been thrown over them, and Bobby's hand shot back to his lap.
Sandra breathed deeply and looked out at the grinning vendor who stooped, peering in their window. His eyes danced with mischief as though he had seen something. His white cap was cocked at a rakish angle.
"What did you say?" Bobby blurted.
"Forget him," Sandra snapped, straightening, moving her shoulders to seat her breasts properly once again. "Tell him we're going some place where they serve more than coffee and ice cream."
Bobby looked at her, his nose wrinkled. "Huh?"
She snuggled against him, ignoring the still staring vendor. "Come on," she whispered, her fingers jingling the keys in the ignition. "Let's go back to the apartment. Kirk and Debra can survive without