Chapter 2
Neubarth awoke to see the faded pattern of the carpet directly before his eyes. He jerked himself upright and looked around. The room was empty, and midmorning sunshine streamed through the tattered curtains. Looking down at himself, Neubarth saw that he was wearing no shorts or pants, and that his shirttail was stiff with something which had dried into it. He gazed ruefully at his hairy paunch and at the limp organ below it. Realizing his rather compromising appearance, he looked for his trousers and underwear.
When he was outside, he walked slowly to his car, remembering in detail the events of the past evening. He was now sure that he had smoked marijuana, and that the headache which now raged against his left temple was its legacy. He got into his car, started it, and drove down the street, wondering how he would explain his long absence to Louise. Indeed, he thought, how am I to explain taking part in an orgy to myself. He shook his head at the laughable aspects of the experience, and felt close to tears when he thought of Farley, and how appalled he would be should he ever find out about his father's degrading behavior. He wouldn't. Neubarth swore that his life would be irreproachable from that moment on.
Louise accepted his story of drinking a little too much and falling asleep on Dean Mortality's couch with an understanding smile, but he thought that Farley gave him a curious glance at the breakfast table. It being Saturday, Neubarth spent the day weeding in his garden. As he worked the loose soil with his trowel, he envisioned Marnie as she had looked that night — her titanic breasts hanging down to the bottom of her ribcage, and her fine pubic pelt luxuriating at the junction of her thighs. Teeth gritting, he resolved to think no more about her, nor about that trollop Margaret, nor about her devilish companion, Ted Rhadaman. He spaded furiously.
On Monday, having already disposed of his English class, Professor Neubarth sat pondering the possibility of getting some of his old lecture notes out of his files and using them for the afternoon literature class. He had never done that before. His industrious nature had rebelled at even the thought of taking such an easy way out before. But now he wasn't so sure.
He saw a shadow upon the opaque glass of his office door. Someone was standing behind it. He got up from his desk and walked over to the door, flung it open. Marnie stood there, her head down.
"Come in, Marnie." He took her by the arm and led her to the chair near his desk, striving to keep his face averted from the sensual swellings at the front of her prim dress. He sat back down in his desk chair. Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. Marnie continued to face downward, studying an area of the floor just in front of her shoes. Finally she raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes were reddened and puffy. "I'm so sorry, Professor Neubarth, I don't know what came over me." She spoke haltingly, as though she were ready to begin sobbing.
"Whatever it was, Marnie, it came over both of us," he said forcefully, feeling in complete control of the situation, as befitting a man of his standing. "I suppose it was the marijuana." He paused. "It's past. I think we should both try to forget that regrettable evening."
"But that's just it, Professor," she said tearfully. "I can't. I think I love you." She gazed at him, eyes brimming.
Neubarth swallowed painfully. He had not foreseen this. It was ridiculous. The girl continued to look at him, a shy smile now intruding into the fresh purity of her young features. She got up and came to him, her eyes beaming through their glaze of tears. She came to a stop beside him. "We can work it out ... Victor."
He was about to answer, but was interrupted as her mouth descended onto his. She forced her tongue through his parted teeth and fell into his lap and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her lips mightily against his. He felt smothered by both the pressure of her mouth and the hills of cloaked flesh that billowed up around his throat. He tried to push her away. She hugged him more tightly and her tongue lashed against his, and against his teeth and the roof of his mouth. He felt that dreaded gnawing in his loins again, tried to fight against it, but the hunger grew in him, scattering inhibitions aside as it bulged. He tried to pull away one last time, just long enough to tell her that it could never work. He wound his arms tightly about her waist and returned her kiss by allowing his tongue to prod at her teeth, enter her wet mouth, and swish around the sides. He found his hand upon her stockinged thigh and, though he tried to contain himself, moved his fingers up the slick fabric, that felt to the touch like tiny, metallic links, until he reached its top. Beyond that, he felt her warm, pliant flesh —bread dough to his kneading fingers. He grasped at her panties, hooked his fingers around the crotch piece and ripped it away in his fervor. Then Neubarth lifted her, with some difficulty, onto his cluttered desk. She sprawled out among his papers, her head thrown back, her arms and legs spread. A small family portrait of Neubarth, his wife, and his two sons clattered to the floor.
His telephone rang. He grabbed it up and told whoever was on the line to call later, then clicked the receiver back into its cradle, and ran his hands over Marnie's body. Her rich curves undulated beneath his touch. He handled the heavy pillows of her breasts, while at the same time his sex gorged itself with blood and rose to press against his pants. He unbuttoned her dress, pulled it from her and threw it onto the chair. Her slip followed, then the immense twin cups of her oversize bra. He pushed the torn pants up around her waist and ran his fingers through the dense beard between her thighs. He saw that there was a little rift of hair extending down through the middle of the pubic triangle and fanning out upon the mouth of her vagina. He groped up towards her breasts and touched one of the rigid nipples, then put his mouth upon this little peak of pink meat and sucked vigorously. She gasped and grabbed his head, holding it firmly down upon the white, spreading mound. He sucked and fondled at the same time, but the pressure in his crotch became too much, so he stepped back and frantically unbuckled his belt, letting his trousers and undershorts crumple about his shoes. He hoisted himself onto the desk between her parted legs and immediately inserted his penis into her damp cleft. They rocked violently, and Neubarth had to grab at the wooden edge of the desk to prevent them from tumbling off. She started to moan loudly, and he had the presence of mind to cup his hand over her opened mouth. When he reached climax, he pressed his mouth down into the alabaster pulp of her breast in order to stifle his panting. Their bodies shuddered furiously at the moment of mutual release, and the nipple area of Marnie's free breast spun like a rolling eye.
The telephone rang again. Neubarth lay as he was, basking in the intermingling warmth of their two expired bodies. As the phone jangled for the fourth time, he slid off the desk and picked up the receiver.
"Yes?"
"Victor? What's wrong? Why did you hang up on me a few minutes ago?" Her tone was one of troubled concern.
"A meeting, darling. Had to rush to a meeting. Sorry I hung up on you."
"I don't know, Victor. I just don't know. You've been acting so strangely the past few days."
"There's nothing strange, Louise," he said, feeling himself grow angry. "It's just my work. That's all!" He slammed the receiver down without asking what she had called about.
He turned back towards Marnie to see that she had put on her slip, and she had her dress up to her waist. Her breasts were still unconfined, and a thin layer of perspiration glistened on each. She smiled at him. He walked to her and clutched a red-tipped globe in each hand, pressing the nipples between thumbs and index fingers.
"These are really splendid, Marnie."
"Do you honestly think so?" she asked. She gazed down regretfully at her upthrust breasts. "Sometimes I think they're just too large. People stare at me like I'm a freak."
He moved away from her, pulled his shorts and pants up, and buckled his belt. He scooped up her bra from the chair and handed it to her, noting as he did so that the little label on the edge of the cup read 42-D. He knew that he had to say something to her that would end this madness, but he didn't know how to begin, especially after he had just taken advantage of her adolescent affection. He sat down in his chair.
"Marnie," he said, trying to choose his words carefully, "I think you know that I am a married man. Perhaps you don't know that I also have two sons, the eldest of whom is older than you." He wasn't sure that he was proceeding correctly, but resolved to go on nevertheless. "We can see no more of one another apart from our normal classroom contact. Naturally a man of my years is most flattered when a lovely young lady like yourself expresses affection." She began to cry softly. He hurried on. "There can be no more of this." Thoughts of his wife fell on him like a tangible grayness, and in his mind he saw her unexciting, angular body. He looked up. Marnie's flesh was pink and firm, like a rosebud, he thought. The old, stern, authoritarian presence of mind that he had felt as a wartime PT boat commander came rushing over him. "We must regard our recent intimacies as a highly pleasant, but short interlude." She began to sob more loudly. "That will be all, Miss Croft." He busied himself with his disordered papers, and after a moment or two he heard the office door open and close quietly. Yes, he thought, he handled the situation properly. He began to restack his dampened and crumpled notes.
The days came and went, and very gradually, the locked coldness of winter gave way to the warmer weather of early April. The tree-lined city streets began to become shady once again, as the spreading canopy above them turned green with the first leaves of spring. The campus activities increased. Students could be seen sitting in couples upon the rich lawn of the college's central quadrangle in the now pleasant afternoons. No longer did they hurry along the icy sidewalks, scarved and overcoated, their steps as brisk as their desires to gain the heated sanctuaries of the classrooms or the library.
The coeds donned their summer apparel, even shorter skirts than usual, and occasionally, sleeveless blouses. Professor Neubarth walked rapidly by the relaxed students on the lawn in his daily transit between his office and the Humanities building, assimilating their casual happiness. He was at peace with his world, the tensions of the winter were dispeled by the glorious vernal awakening, and he felt that he was conducting his classes more creatively than ever. Marnie now sat in the back row in his American literature class, never raising her eyes to his anymore, nor lingering behind the other students to discuss something with him, as she had in the past. He was certain that the affair had been successfully concluded, and he felt glad at the absence of any of those embarrassing episodes that, he imagined, clung to the coattails of sundered relationships of this nature.
He tried to reactivate his disintegrating sexual relationship with his wife, but although he felt a resurgence of inclination to make love to her immediately after the break with Marnie, he soon leveled off into his more normal coupling with Louise on a once-a-week basis. She seemed, as always, satisfied with this. Farley, however, seemed unusually fidgety and nervous these days. But he is thirteen, the Professor thought and the first stirrings of puberty are beginning to make themselves known to him. He reminded himself to have a talk with him in the near future. He told Louise one night, after Farley had retired, of his intentions to apprise his son of the nature of things sexual. After he had spoken, Louise continued to knit, then replied in a low voice, "I'm not sure that it will be necessary for you to tell him about those things now."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
She laid aside her knitting. "I found a pair of his underwear stuck back in his closet the other day. They were bloodstained, and, well, quite suspiciously stained."
Neubarth did not reply. He sat and pondered the possible ramifications of this development. So, the boy had been experimenting. But with whom? He was only thirteen, and the few girls he knew were the rather prim, pubescent daughters of staid townspeople — not the sort of young women that he could imagine indulging in some sort of furtive intercourse behind a bush. Then he realized that he hardly knew his son, that he had been so concerned with the demands of his profession that he had seldom been available enough for the boy to establish any sort of companionable relationship with him. If something had gone amiss, Neubarth could only blame himself. An overpowering sense of gloom washed over him. The boy couldn't have gone to a brothel, could he? Neubarth wondered. No, that suspicion was ridiculous. He was far too young in appearance to even gain entrance to such a place. Indeed, Neubarth thought, there is no such place in town.
Two days later, Neubarth stood by his living room window in the late afternoon. He was tired. The classes that day had been arduous to conduct. He sucked at his old briar, having just salvaged the worn pipe from an attic drawer in response to his strange new need to smoke something. Outside the window he saw a warm fusion of green and bright blue. The cloudless sky shone through the fully leaved walnut trees, and the sprinkler spun lazily on the lawn, casting tinted droplets of water in a wide arc. He saw two figures appear far down the long, sloping sidewalk to his left. It was about time for Farley to be getting home from school, so one of them must be he. The pair walked on in his direction, and when they were about fifty yards distant, Neubarth saw them walk out of the shade and into a bright patch of sunlight. The shorter one was Farley. He had his school books tucked up under his arm. The other person, who was tall and thin, had an unkempt and frizzy head of hair that shone bright red as the sun struck it, like a bloody halo. Neubarth's heart pounded in his throat. Rhadaman! That hellish young man was walking with his son! Instantly the Professor's mind teemed with sensual images. He saw a woman with outstretched legs, lying on a black-sheeted bed. She was nude, and her naked flesh contrasted sharply with the black fabric beneath her. She smiled, and motioned someone to come forward, while spreading her thighs even further apart. The dark burl of her pubic fleece parted, to reveal the glistening inner reaches of her genitals. She reached down and stroked the pink folds of her vaginal entrance, then moved her hand up to the magenta knot of one of her nipples, and stroked this, while continuing to smile seductively. Neubarth shook his head in a spasm of disgust.
He opened the front door and walked out onto the lawn. As Rhadaman and Farley got to the edge of the yard and stopped to face each other while conversing in low voices, Neubarth walked rapidly up to them. Ted saw him as he approached, and turning his demoniac eyes upon the tense-faced professor, smiled broadly.
"I haven't seen you in quite a while, Professor. Have you been busy with your ... pursuits?"
Neubarth prepared to reply angrily, and demand to know why he and Farley were together. He said nothing. Rhadaman's eyes caught the sunlight and a prismatic sequence of colors revolved in them like a flickering neon beer sign. Neubarth felt a tremendous pressure building in his head, and a sudden faintness. He didn't hear Farley greet him, then bid Ted good-bye, and stepping around him, go up the walk towards the front door. Ted continued to stare into the Professor's eyes for a couple of minutes more, then moved back.
"Well, see you soon, Professor."
Neubarth watched him walk down the street. Then he turned in a clumsy stagger, and walked slowly and carefully up to the door.
The boy was silent throughout dinner, and Neubarth didn't attempt to draw him out. As they were all eating their dessert, Louise asked Farley how he had spent his day.
"What's new in the exciting world of the budding young chemist?" she asked jovially, reaching over to rumple his hair.
Farley began a monologue about his recent experiments in various aspects of physical science. He spoke without emphasis, as though what he was telling them was simply for their own edification and he couldn't care less. They finished their dessert.
Neubarth wanted to speak, but his head was spinning frighteningly, and the images of that last party at Marnie's apartment shouldered their way into his mind with merciless intensity. He saw Marnie's genitals spread out like a furry target, and the shaft of his own taut sex plunging deep into the pulsating orifice. He gritted his teeth and succeeded in driving away the hateful memories. Then he turned to Farley and asked how he had happened to meet Ted Rhadaman. The boy was reluctant to answer. Finally, he began to talk. "He just happened to be walking by the school grounds when I got out of class," he said, looking down at his empty plate.
"And?" Neubarth asked.
Farley continued: "And he asked me if I was Professor Neubarth's son, and I said yes. He was going along in my direction, so we just walked and talked about ... things."
"What kind of things?" Neubarth shouted. "What did that bastard tell you?!" His outcry reverberated around the walls of the dining room.
Farley gave him a withering glance, then got up and went to his room.
"What was all that about? Do you know this 'Ted'?" Louise asked.
Neubarth didn't answer. His depression was absolute and the sensual images flocked into his consciousness. He was sure that he would never have thought of those things again if it hadn't been for the terrible reappearance of Rhadaman.
"Well, I'm going to get to the bottom of this," Louise said in a forceful tone. "I've never heard you raise your voice to Farley before." She got up and followed her son down the hallway.
He would hit him, Neubarth decided. He would get that Rhadaman aside and just break his nose or his jaw with one blow. That monster would never dare intrude into his familial serenity again. He realized the grotesque disharmony of these fistic imaginings with his established position in the quietude of campus life. He didn't care. His wartime experiences had implanted a deeplying sense of idealized masculine behavior in him. I'll do it, he thought.
He got up from his chair and walked into the living room, where he sat down in his favorite easy chair and began to peruse the evening paper. The heavy black type glared up at him. It shouted of demands made, of agreements ratified, of concessions offered. Nothing in the paper was the slightest bit consolatory. He laid his head back against the chair cushion and tried to doze.