Chapter 4
Gwen was in misery the next few days. She had let a woman make love to her. Worse she had enjoyed it tremendously. Much, much worse she wanted to experience it again!
Pete continued to sleep on the couch in the living room. Gwen tossed on the wide bed, sleepless, her thighs warm and moistened as her thoughts dwelt lovingly on Isobel. The very memory of the warm, silken, perfumed body pressing on hers was enough to make Gwen feel a real and intense desire.
If only Pete would come up to her then, she thought. She twisted and turned, her hips throbbing. She put her hands on her aching breasts and squeezed till the nipples popped into hard peaks. She wanted love!
But Pete did not come. And Gwen was too proud to go to him. Pete had offended. It was his place to apologize, she thought. With delicate fingers she touched the hard knob Isobel had touched. It seemed to be the very center of an ardent burning need. Her hips jerked as her fingers played.
With a sigh, she took her hand away. She wanted her husband. He should touch her, wake her throbbing life, make love so that she felt the tremendous ecstasy of satisfied passion. She resolved to give Pete a strong hint of her feelings.
The next day she kissed him when he came home from work.
"Hello, darling. Did you have a good day?" She tried to press against him.
He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away, just a little, but enough to keep a distance between their bodies.
"A hot day. I'm covered with sweat. I'll take a shower before dinner."
She drooped. "All right, dear." She felt rejected, even with his explanation.
After dinner, he said, "Oh, I suppose we'll have to go to the company picnic. It's on Saturday."
"This Saturday? They never had it in June!" she protested. Pete hadn't said a word about the picnic.
"There's a conflict in July. They changed the date. Uh Larry said it's the usual. Games in the afternoon, dancing in the evening."
"Okay. What shall I wear?"
He shrugged. He had scarcely looked at her all evening. "Whatever you want. I'm wearing my white suit. It's cooler."
He didn't seem to care what she wore, she thought, as he got up and left the table. She felt rather frightened as she did the dishes alone. She wouldn't have believed Pete would remain angry so long.
When she went to the living room, he was reading the paper. He was half-hidden behind the pages. She finally went to him and sat down beside him.
"Pete?" she asked.
"Yeah?" He turned the page, and it made a loud rustle of irritation.
"Would you like to go to a movie? There's a good double feature at the drive-in."
Silence. She put her hand very casually on his knee, and leaned closer as though to look at the paper. She could feel the heat of his masculine body, the warmth throbbing under her fingers.
He sat up straight. "Here, take the paper. I'm through," he said, and put the newspaper on her lap. "I've got some insurance forms to make out tonight. Sorry. I can't take time for a movie."
He got up and went over to his desk. He snapped on the desk lamp, took several books from a pile, sat down and began to work.
Gwen felt as though he had slapped her. She sat with the newspaper on her lap. Tears came to her eyes, but she blinked hard until they sank down again from where they had come.
The picnic, she thought then, with renewed hope. Everyone drank quite a bit. Pete had been drunk on beer last year, and had laughed and been silly. In the car afterwards he had grabbed her and kissed her furiously.
He would have to dance with her at the picnic. She would fix that, she vowed. She would make him want her while they danced. Then afterwards at home he would forget their silly quarrel. They would go up to bed, and she would show him what she had learned, and-
And she would wipe from her memory the feel of Isobel's lips on her stomach, the caress of the small skillful hand, the play of fingers on wet yielding flesh, the ecstasy known with another woman.
The picnic was on the hottest, sunniest June day yet. Gwen sat in the shade gossiping with some secretaries, and watching Pete play baseball. He drank a can of beer between every inning. But so did the other men. The score was tied.
"How do you like married life?" one of the girls asked.
Gwen, through some strange trick of the mind, thought of Isobel, the conversation that day, the blonde woman's probing questions, then the bedroom climax. She blushed hotly.
The girls laughed, and teased her.
"Oh, I bet Pete is quite a guy," one girl said.
Gwen didn't try to comment on that.
Later in the evening, she got Pete to dance with her. He had drunk plenty of beer, he was loose-limbed and swaying with the music.
She pressed close to him, and let her hips rub against his hips. She had never danced like that before with any man, even her husband. She was feeling pretty, wearing a thin yellow dress, confident of her charms, knowing Pete loved her.
She put her arm up high over Pete's shoulder and played with the curly strands of hair on the back of his neck, as she had seen Karen do. Pete jerked his neck like a stallion, tossing his head, rearing back, his black eyes gbttering.
She knew a sense of power. She pressed closer, and touched his neck again. And she got a reaction. Against her belly, through their thin clothes, she felt a powerful surge of masculine response. He was reacting! And how, she thought, not fearful tonight. She wanted him to be big and swollen and ready.
The music stopped. He took her back to the table. Larry Crawford was standing there, waiting for them.
"How about this dance, Gwen?"
She smiled, accepting the invitation. Larry was a good dancer, though he held her too close.
Was it marriage, she wondered, that made her so intensely aware of masculinity? Through her clothes she was feeling Larry's bodily reaction to her. He seemed to purposely rub against her as they danced. One hand on the small of her back held her firmly to him. Against her stomach a large hard pressure was pushing. It was pulsing, growing, and he held her tighter and tighter.
"You're sweet," he growled in her ear. "Oh, you're a sweet one."
In a dark corner of the outdoor dance floor, he paused, pressed very hard to her, his hips seeming to revolve in an erotic dance.
"Please Larry-" she gasped. The drinks she had had were blurring her brain, but she had sense enough to know he was using her.
"Hold still just a minute ah, ah ahhh-" He groaned, and bent over and kissed her neck savagely, with open lips, his teeth touching her skin. At the same time, his hips jerked spasmodically.
"Larry!" He wouldn't release her, hugging her furiously. She squirmed, and he seemed to enjoy her movements. Finally he shuddered in hard spasms that shook him.
He gasped out, "It's all right. I've got cloth there."
She was burning with shame and embarrassment when he finally let her go. He laughed softly when he saw her face.
"Still the bashful bride?" he teased. "I thought you knew plenty by this time."
She turned her back on him and walked unsteadily back to Pete.
"It's midnight. Shall we go?" asked Pete, with strained politeness.
"Yes. Let's." She wanted a cool wind in her face to cool the heat of her shame. She had let Larry Crawford use her. In the first few moments she could have pulled away, but she hadn't. She had let him use her to satisfy himself.
In the car, she wanted to sit close to Pete. He took off his jacket and laid it on the seat between them.
"Still hot tonight," he said impersonally.
"Yes, it is. It was a nice picnic," she said, not thinking so at all. Marriage had opened her eyes and ears to new sights and sounds, to the new meanings of casual words, to the significance of dancing, to many things that made her shrink.
She had danced with Larry every year at the picnic, had felt him and his hard masculine pressure-and had not realized in her innocence that she was arousing him. Of course, he had never before dared do what he had done tonight. She grimaced as she thought of it. The incident marred her enjoyment of Pete's nearness.
At the house she said, "Pete, do come up to bed. I'm afraid the couch isn't comfortable."
"It's all right. It's cooler downstairs."
"But, Pete-"
"Go on. You're probably tired."
He smiled at her, and her heart lifted up hopefully. Maybe he would come up tonight.
She went upstairs, took a quick shower, and donned the pretty nightgown that always aroused him. Then she went to bed. She heard Pete closing doors downstairs, heard him slam the refrigerator door. Her ears strained for any sounds that would indicate he was coming upstairs.
Instead, she heard a murmur of voices. They seemed to come from outside. Curiosity made her get up. Maybe Karen was having a party.
Gwen went barefoot to the window. She peered out at the side lawn between their house and the Marshall's. She gasped, and put her hand over her mouth.
Karen was there. Gwen could see her clearly in the moonlight. She was wearing something shiny. Her hands were on her hips and she was swaying back and forth as she talked to a man.
A man. Pete! Gwen gazed with incredulous horror. It was a nightmare. It couldn't be happening. Pete had his hands on Karen's waist. He was leaning forward. Now he was kissing Karen. Kissing that woman!
The two figures moved close. In the moonlight they made one shadow. Gwen stared till her eyes were burning with tears. She blinked to see more clearly.
The two kissed, held each other. Pete's arms were clear around that woman. Her arms went up around his neck. She was holding his head, kissing him, squirming against him.
"But he's mine!" Gwen whispered, her hands clenched on her nightgown. "He's mine!"
After a seeming age, the two figures moved. They walked, arms around each other, to some bushes. But Gwen could still see them even as they paused in the shadows. Eyes burning with tears of jealous rage, she watched them.
Karen moved first. Her fingers worked around Pete's waist. Pete's shirt was taken off, then his pants. Gwen stiffened. She shook in the darkness of the room as she looked at the woman undressing her husband.
Karen laughed huskily. Now Pete's hands moved. Karen's dress was pulled off her head. She wore nothing beneath. Bodies flashed in the moonlight and shadows. They sank to the grass.
Gwen could not turn away. She stood like a statue as Pete made vigorous love to Karen. Karen's legs were pointing up to the sky. Pete's behind humped up and down, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
Gwen chocked with envious fury. He should be doing that to her. He was her man. She was ready for him. Her thighs were warm and wet and eager. It wasn't fair, she raged inwardly. It was not fair!
Pete fell over in the grass, and lay sprawling. Karen raised up, stretched lazily, then bent over him. Gwen saw Karen's hand clearly as it closed over Pete's limp penis. She worked at it, and kissed him and threw herself on him. In a few minutes they were locked in another embrace, this time with Karen on top.
It was endless, horrible to Gwen, emotionally exhausting, as she stood at the window. On and on they went. Karen's white legs flashed. Her white body swayed faster, then abruptly she lay down on Pete and they were still, motionless, their legs sprawling in the moonlight.
Then Karen moved and sat up. She stood up, and gazed down at Pete. Her hands were on her hips. She looked, thought Gwen, like a tigress gazing at the prey she had destroyed.
Clearly, unmistakably, Gwen saw what happened next. Pete reached out one arm and took hold :of 'Karen's leg. He pulled, and Karen lay down with him. The two figures on the grass lay as one.
Gwen turned away and staggered over to the bed. She bumped into the side of the bed and fell down on it. She was numb with shock, and very tired.
She couldn't thing for a while. Finally her brain cleared. Pete loved Karen. That was why he no longer made love to her. That was why he refused to sleep with her. He loved Karen!
He would want a divorce, thought Gwen, clutching the sheet. Pete would ask her for a divorce so he could marry Karen. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt empty, terribly alone.
If only they had never followed Larry Crawford's advice and moved to the suburbs. It had been bad, bad for them. Everything had gone wrong.
Married so short a time and already Pete loved another woman. It was incredible but it was true. Gwen had seen it with her own eyes. The image of the two nude figures on the grass, engaged in a savage sexual play, was burned on her mind.
These people were not her kind, she thought, as she lay sleeplessly through the long night hours. They were not her kind.
Not Karen-
Not Larry-
Nor ... nor Isobel with her tantalizing hands and provocative mouth and knowing fingers-Gwen sobbed aloud. But Pete was not near enough to hear her.