Chapter 10

Rene Dixson's unsteady exit from the patio on Pete Edwards' arm did not go unnoticed by her husband, Maynord; few things did. He'd also noticed how many drinks she'd poured down herself, so had a good idea how intoxicated she must be.

But if Pete Edwards had ideas about fucking her, Maynord silently wished him well. If some other man could only get old Rene hooked on his cock and pictures could be gotten, perhaps he'd be able to cut loose from the old nag. Without having to cough up all the money she'd handed over for him to invest in things he'd needed to keep his airline growing, that is. She was only so much excess damned baggage, so far as he was concerned, if she stuck to her damned ultimatum about refusing to pull any more money out of other investment areas to make it available for his airline's needs.

The instant Rene was out of sight, his refusal to dance became pointless. Maynord stood up and moved out among the dancing couples.

The chic fashion designer, Helene Delon, had taken his eye the first time he'd seen her. He noticed now how bored she looked as she danced with her faggy husband. He moved in on them and tapped Jamison on the shoulder as he announced, "Cutting in!"

Jamison snapped, "What's been keeping you?" and handed Helene over to Maynord as if relieved to have her taken off his hands. Helene perked up noticeably as she came into Maynord's arms.

A sudden inspiration flashed through Maynord's mind. He asked Helene, "Do you enjoy flying?"

"Depends on the weather and the pilot," she said matter-of-factly.

He glanced at the sky, then back at her, declaring, "You couldn't hope for better weather than we've got tonight. And money can't hire a better pilot than the guy who flies my private plane."

"Where've you been keeping him?" Helene asked in surprise. "I don't remember seeing him. Who is he?"

Maynord gave her a rather wry smile. "Me."

Helene smiled, then cracked, "If you only had a little self-confidence, Mr. Dixson, you might turn yourself into a big success one day."

Straight-faced Maynord said, " I know. But I am working on it. If you don't believe me, look at my record against the German Luftwaffe. I've been working at it a long time. What do you say? My plane's at the ranch landing strip. It's a beautiful night for flying ... or any other kind of adventure that may take your fancy."

Helene tipped her head to one side, her knowing eye giving him a long, speculative study. Finally she nodded, murmuring, "The part about adventure appeals to me."

An hour later they were flying at fifteen thousand feet. A few scattered specks of light winked up at them from ranches and a couple of small towns far below. Helene looked as thrilled and bright eyed as she handled the controls from the seat on the right side of the cockpit as a schoolgirl out on her first date taking her first lesson at the steering wheel of his car. But each time the plane encountered a small pocket of rough air, she tended to wrestle the controls as if her efforts alone would keep them aloft.

Each time it happened, Maynord told her patiently, "Don't sweat it. This baby can fly itself through worse stuff than that. Relax and enjoy it."

"That's what the big girls used to tell me I ought to do if rape ever seemed inevitable," Helene cracked.

"I've always thought it was best that way, even if rape wasn't inevitable," Maynord replied wryly, watching her narrowly. "Just in case the surroundings up here strike your fancy as being romantic, that couch back there in my executive lounge folds out into a first rate bed."

Helene gave him a bright-eyed glance, then murmured, "What a place to get laid! It'd be a real first for me. Why didn't you bring a copilot? As much imagination as you seem to use about almost everything else, I can't understand how you came to slip up on that. Unless I really just don't appeal to you and you're only being nice, suggesting something you know I can't take you up on."

Maynord chuckled, unfastened his seatbelt, got up and went back to the cabin. A couple of minutes later returned, quietly announcing, "The bed's ready."

Helene jerked around, giving him a big stare, then exclaimed, "You aren't kidding!"

"Of course not. But if you were-."

She interrupted, demanding, "But what about the plane? You can't really mean it'll fly itself?"

"It has an autopilot that'll fly it as safely as a man can for hours when the air's as smooth as it is tonight," he told her. "Go on back and get your clothes off-unless you were only kidding about wanting the adventure."

Helene suddenly had a breathless look of excitement. She grabbed the release on her seatbelt suddenly. As she slipped by him, heading for the cabin, she murmured, "Don't forget to put the cat out and leave a note for the milkman."

Maynord slapped her approvingly on the ass, drawing a giggling gasp from her. Then she ducked out the cockpit doorway into the cabin beyond reach. Chuckling, he checked his instruments quickly, then locked in the autopilot.

When he returned to the cabin, Helene was already in bed, the sheets held up modestly over her naked breasts. She frowned and said anxiously, "I hope you understand I don't do anything like this with just any man who comes along? As modern women go, I'm usually pretty proper."

Maynord shrugged, "Don't sweat it. We're both adults. You aren't forcing me. I don't see any problem."

"That's because you're not a woman," she told him. "Most people don't give a second thought about a man who indulges himself in this kind of an adventure. But those same people are still inclined to talk about a woman who does the exact same kind of thing. And a lot of men talk big about how much they believe in sexual equality, but they say dirty things behind a woman's back who merely does the same things they think are perfectly all right for them and other men to do. So please pardon me if I can't help feeling nervous."

Maynord had been methodically removing his clothes while they talked. Now he was down to his shorts. He suggested, "Maybe you'd be less nervous if you turned off the lights and looked out the window at the stars and things."

Helene turned the lights off, letting darkness flood through the cabin. Darkness diluted only by starlight coming through the windows. She looked out the nearest window, then murmured, "I can't believe this is actually happening. So beautiful. So fantastically wild."

Just then she felt the bed give as Maynord's weight came upon it. She glanced around. He was watching her expectantly, she found. Instead of stretching out beside her, he waited upright on his knees as if poised for action.

Helene patted the bed beside her invitingly, then turned the top edge of the sheet back a little on his side, a clear suggestion that he get under with her. But he seemed blind to such subtlety. Rather impatiently he said, "Well, why don't you get your legs open so I can get between them and get on with this?"

A low chuckle of astonishment came out of Helene, then she murmured, "You've got to be kidding?"

"Kidding about what?" he demanded. "We both took our clothes off without anyone forcing either of us to. We've both gotten into this bed with just one thing in mind: to fuck. So what's to kid about? Let's fuck."

"You really aren't kidding!" she exclaimed in amazement.

"I don't get all this stall about kidding," he declared with unconcealed impatience.

"For your information," Helene said slowly, enunciating very clearly as if explaining something to a small child or a moron, "I got into this bed to be made love to."

"That's what I just said; to fuck," he said sharply.

"No that's not what you just said!" she corrected, her tone taking on a similar sharpness. "You hop into bed and with no preliminaries throw a fuck into a whore or a call girl. Making love is an entirely different matter. Even when it winds up with a fuck, it's an entirely different kind of a fuck than a whore or a call girl ever gets. Entirely different!"

"You've got bats in your belfry, woman!" Maynord exclaimed. "How can one fuck be entirely different from another fuck? A fuck's a fuck, and it don't make a damned bit of difference if the woman's fat or skinny, old or young, black or white, brown, yellow or red, one fuck's just exactly like another. Now do you want to fuck or don't you? If you've changed your damned mind, just say-."

Helene cut him off, declaring sharply, "You're either the stupidest man I ever got involved with, or the most abysmally ignorant about women and about making love to women. If you knew as little about flying as you seem to know about being a lover, you couldn't even get a kid's kite off the ground."

"The hell you say!" Maynord exclaimed. "Well it's damned strange I've never had any complaints before!"

"You think so?" she challenged. "Do you really think so? How many women have you ever fucked who were in any position to complain?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"If a woman had married you before she got introduced to your technique in the bedroom, she probably loved you and was afraid to complain for fear of hurting your overinflated ego. So she might never complain. And unless I miss my guess, all the other women you've ever fucked have been either employees, stewardesses or office employees-or call girl types. None of them would dare complain. So you've never learned a thing about making love. You still go about it like an overgrown, clodhopping country hick who firmly believes every woman is just panting for a chance to get fucked. You may believe you're being very generous just to throw a fast fuck into her. Right?"

"Sounds a hell of a lot nearer to being right than the shit you've been spreading!"

"You think so, huh? Well let me tell you something, flyboy," Helene snapped straight back at him, "it takes one hell of a lot more study and training and insight and practice to turn a man into a great lover than is ever required to turn him into a great pilot. And a hell of a lot fewer men ever make the grade as lovers than do as pilots. Because pilots get washed out and grounded when they foul up half as bad trying to fly as most of them regularly foul up trying to act like a he-man and lover."

"Where the hell do you get off with coming on like such an expert when you're married to that fag you've got for a husband?" Maynord snapped.

"You run your airline and I'll run my career, if you don't mind!" Helene snapped. "Jamison happens to be as important to my career as your wife and her money have been to your airline."

"What the hell do you know about that?" Maynord demanded in a huff, as if she'd been snooping into strictly private matters.

"Don't kid yourself, Little Boy Blue," Helene advised coolly. "Everyone knows the most you'd have might be a crop dusting plane, or something of that kind, if it hadn't been for your wife's millions. Other people aren't as stupid as you seem to think. Everyone knows how you've gotten where you are. And from what I'm finding out, your poor wife's gotten about the worst damned gypping any woman ever got. She hasn't even gotten a good lover for all the money she's invested in you."

Maynord sat there on his knees and heels looking like she'd slapped him across the face with a sock full of wet shit. He blinked his eyes hard several times. The irritation and anger in those eyes had changed to an expression of puzzled thoughtfulness. Finally he said, "You really mean what you've been telling me."

Helene assured him, "You're damned right I mean it! Every word, and a lot more. Why?"

"No woman's ever talked to me like that before."

"And I've told you why. Not many women will talk that way to a man they love; it's easier just to become a frigid wife. And damned few girls whose paycheck depends on staying in your good graces would risk even suggesting such a thing. And professional whores want you to fuck fast and get it over with, because down deep they hate your guts for using them the way you do. So who does that leave to tell you such things? Only your friends. And my guess is, you've damned few if any friends you're on a fucking basis with."

"I've got damned few friends, period," Maynord admitted. "I've always been too busy building my business to have much time for hanky-panky of any kind. Especially not with any woman I considered to really be a friend."

Helene shook her head in wonder, declaring, "It always amazes me how many men spend their whole life fucking their enemies, instead of ever learning how to make love to their friends. What a waste!"

Again Maynord looked at her thoughtfully before he finally said, "I have a strange feeling you may be right."

"Of course I'm right!"

Hesitantly Maynord asked, "But what-can a man do about it?"

"Make some of the right kind of friends," Helene said, then chuckled abruptly. She added, "And most important be man enough to forget his damned ego and admit he's almost totally ignorant in this one vital area of life and ask for some help learning what he needs to learn: how to really make love to a woman, how to become a real lover."

Again Maynord was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Would you feel inclined to become my-friend?"

"I'm up here in this flying bedroom with you, aren't I?" Helene asked lightly. Quickly she added, "But not because I'm just panting with eagerness to get fucked, like you seemed to think. But because you looked to me like an interesting man who might become an interesting and enjoyable friend. If a little lovemaking got mixed into the friendship occasionally, that'd simply be frosting on the cake. Dig?"

A wry grin suddenly erased the sober tension in Maynord's angular, strong-jawed face as he nodded, exclaiming, "Dig!" Then he asked, "So how does an overgrown, clodhopper country hick go about becoming a lover?"

"For starters," Helene said, reaching a hand out to take his nearest hand in her warm grasp, "you discard all your old ideas and get some new ones fixed in your head. Like the fact that all women want most in life to be loved. Women give their sexual favors in the hope of getting love in return. Men are supposed to give a woman some love in return for the sexual favors she gives. But they almost always need the loving in generous amounts first and foremost. Got it?"

Maynord said, "That's not the way the big boys told things when I was a kid in country school and later in our small town high school-but I'll take your word on that being the true picture. So what do I do about it?"

"Use your imagination, just like you've used it in building your business from scratch," Helene directed. "Make me feel loved. Act like you enjoy touching me. Caress me. Kiss me. Nibble me. Run your fingertips over my whole body. Explore me. Feel my breasts. Kiss my breasts. Taste them. Lick them. Nibble my nipples. Suck them. Run the tip of your tongue around my navel. Send it licking into my navel. Kiss and lick your way on down my lower belly toward-."

"Hell, that could take hours!" Maynord interrupted protesting.

"That's exactly the point," Helene nodded. "A real lover sometimes takes hours. But if he loves making love to a woman, the way he ought to, it doesn't seem like hours to him. He's enjoying what he's doing as much as she is, so time flies and hours seem like minutes. A real lover creates mutual pleasure with everything he does. Not just pleasure for himself. Not just pleasure for the woman. But pleasure for both. Mutual pleasure. Dig?"

"A woman really wants to get all that kissing and licking and feeling and squeezing and touching and all that before she finally gets fucked?" Maynord murmured, sounding incredulous.

"You'd just better believe she does," Helene declared. "But real lovers learn to enjoy that part of lovemaking as much as a woman does. As much, even, as they enjoy the actual fucking, when they finally get to it. So they wind up getting a whole lot of additional pleasure they wouldn't get otherwise."

"Maybe so, but I'm a busy man," Maynord protested. "I'm usually on a tight schedule. I've never had much time to waste grabbing just a fast fuck very often. I've usually got a lot of important things to take up my time and attention."

"If you want to became a real lover," Helene told him patiently, "you've got to learn to relax. Something that will help you relax is to sell yourself the idea that nothing in this world is more important than learning to love, first, and after that, learning to be a good lover. Something's importance or unimportance is all in your head. So a guy who thinks love and sex really aren't all that important sets something up in his mind that makes it an impossibility for him to experience love or sex as anything very great. Get the picture? He cheats himself, not just the women he rapes from time to time. He cheats himself, too."

Helene was quiet. Maynord just sat there on knees and heels looking at her, obviously not knowing what he should do.

Abruptly Helene straightened, letting the sheet slide downward to reveal her luscious naked breasts. She leaned toward him and brought his hand to her nearest breast. She cupped his hand around it, watching him as she did. She let him hold her ripe, full tit for a moment, then murmured, "Do you like doing that? Does that feel good to you, too?"

Maynord swallowed hard, then nodded. Suddenly his cock began getting hard again; it had wilted while they were talking. Rather breathlessly he admitted, "It feels damned good. I don't know when I took time to really feel a woman's tit the last time-to really realize how good a nice tit can feel in a man's hand."

"When was the last time you took time to enjoy how good a nice tit can feel in your mouth?" she asked.

"I don't remember ever doing that," he admitted. "How the hell can you get a woman's tit in your mouth when you're in the saddle on top of her?"

"Use your imagination," she directed. "You'll see the perfectly obvious answer.

"Let her get in the saddle, instead of you?" he asked wonderingly. He added, "I have heard that some people do it that way."

"Right," she nodded. She removed the support of her hand from the hand he cupped around her breast, sent it reaching down to gently grip his hardening cock. He sucked in his belly as she touched him, a sharp breath going into him with a low gasping sound. Instantly his cock became hard as a rock. She chuckled, asking, "Does that feel good to you?"

"You have to ask?" he said breathlessly. Then he added, "You're the most exciting damned woman, somehow, that I've ever known. You're steaming me up like I've never been."

Helene chuckled, suggesting, "Maybe I'm just the first woman you've ever given yourself time enough to get steamed up about? Getting up steam of any kind, even sexual, takes time."