Chapter 6
The moment during which Roger stood facing Patty Pen and Mona Fiken seemed suspended between them like a thick fog that could be cut with a knife, or even a sharp word. The three of them-and all the crowd who were still gathered in a circle-were silent.
Patty, looking at Rog, seeing his disrupted clothing and the stain of blood upon it, felt her desire for him intensify. Yet, within her, there was a certain shyness for having found him in such a way. It was so different for him, so "far-out" when he was not at all a far-out person. And, maybe that was why she was so attracted to him, wanted him so very much, she considered.
"I'll just toddle along and leave you two to entertain each other," Mona said to Roger, then glancing at Patty. "I doubt you'll have any trouble trying to decide what to do."
Mona turned and walked away. It seemed like a signal for the rest of the crowd to disperse, which they did amid much new, relieved noise.
Patty smiled at Roger, hoping that he noticed the dress that she wore, especially the way her body was revealed so enchantingly through its light material. He did glance at her body and Patty felt a new tremble of excitement. He was so strong, so sure, so-so everything that she simply had to have.
"Well, are you going to get me a drink?" she asked.
"No," he replied.
"Well, you old grouch," she pouted. "I said I wanted a drink."
"You're under-aged."
"Tough."
"Yes, for you."
"For you, too, if you don't get me one," Patty said.
Roger looked helpless for a moment, then he shrugged and started to walk toward the exit of the room, saying, "Oh, what the hell should I care-come on."
She did: with a giggle and a quick bouncing movement from her breasts and hips as she hurried to catch up with the distance his long strides had placed between them.
When she was next to him, she hooked her arm through his, cuddled her breast hard against him and said, "Wow, did you ever surprise me. And to think I always thought you were a square-a nice square, but one nevertheless."
Roger glanced at her but did not answer.
"Just what was that little game anyway?" she asked.
"It wasn't a game-it's a sickness that came over this party."
"And what were you? That was called exhibitionism, I think. At least that's what my psychiatrist said once way back when I was going to him."
Roger paled a bit, halted and glanced at his front as if to reassure himself that his jacket, only recently donned, covered the marks of his recent depravity. Then he looked dourly at Patty and said, "A psychiatrist? At fifteen? Exhibitionism? What is all this, anyway?"
"Nothing much-just a normal life, I guess," she said indifferently.
"Normal? My God-has everyone gone insane?" He said it as if to himself, and loudly enough for the words to carry as deeply within him as necessary to shake him from the nightmare of his recent feelings-his irresponsibility.
They had reached a bar in the corner of the room. They were the only ones who seemed to want a drink at the particular nook. Roger went behind the bar as Patty leaned her elbows on the bar top.
"What do you drink, brat?" he asked.
"Bourbon. Double. Straight," she answered coldly.
Patty watched Roger as he made their drinks. She felt disturbed, more uneasy than she ever had felt. But it's because Roger Harper is so near, she thought. She leaned a little further across the bar, causing her breasts to peek from the bodice of her gown.
Patty remembered her surprise when Mona Fiken had invited her to the party. She had been very flattered, after all, a patient being invited to a hospital party....! And being allowed out of the hospital to attend it....!
Patty smiled as Roger filled a tall glass nearly a third full with liquor, then added water, and she recalled how Mona Fiken herself had told her that Roger Harper would be at the party. Mona had even hinted that he would be available, that she, Mona, was inviting Patty to the party as a kind of date for Intern Harper. Patty felt amused by the solicitude that Mona and Amos Fiken had extended to her. They were so patronizing. And, Patty knew the reason why. Apparently her father knew what he was talking about when he asked her to keep an eye open while in the hospital, Patty mused. She had kept an eye open. There was plenty to observe for later report to her father-plenty to report, that is, she decided, unless she could have her way about things. And what she wanted her way about was Roger Harper-and she wanted it soon.
"Hurry on with that drink, eh?" she said.
Roger shoved a shot glass filled with amber liquor across the bar to her. Then he lifted his own tall glass and gulped down nearly half of it.
Patty sipped her Bourbon. She smiled at Roger and was nearly ready to demand that he sit next to her when a commotion arose at the far end of the big room. She and Roger both looked in that direction.
Another small circle of guests had formed on the floor and in the middle of the circle, moving to the tune of some unseen bongo drum, a girl moved in a wickedly sensual dance that was less that than an exhibition of herself. Patty looked closer and saw that the girl was young, auburn-haired Susan Crisp. She burned with resentment that a girl only a couple of years older than herself should be receiving such attention.
Patty glanced at Roger and saw that he had finished his drink, had made another, and was staring straight ahead at Susan.
The girl moved slowly, swinging her body from side to side while her feet were planted wide apart on the floor. Her hips undulated. Her breasts, fully revealed because of her dress which was open down the front, swayed and rippled and moved. Patty, looking at them, felt a little self-conscious. Susan's breasts looked vibrant and wild.
Patty heard the movement of Roger's hand raising the new drink to his lips. She turned and watched as he downed it. She could almost tell when its heat thumped in his stomach for his eyes watered and he grimaced.
Patty turned her eyes back to Susan and saw that a young man had joined her dance. The beat of the drum was faster and the couple moved sensually, swinging their hips in a wide circle in perfect unity as if they were making love. Their waists seemed glued together and the man and Susan whirled madly.
When Patty again glanced at Roger, she wondered if he had been newly stimulated, if the wicked dance by Susan Crisp had served to re-strengthen him from his own recent sexual ordeal.
She hoped so-it seemed very important to her that Roger should want her now, that she should prevail over any dance by any girl.
Roger made another new drink for himself. He downed it immediately. Then he grinned at Susan.
"Come on, Rog, let's get out of here," she said quickly. "That old dance's nothing. Nothing around here is anything that I can't top."
"You don't think so, eh?"
"I know it."
"Good for you," he said indifferently. He lifted his eyes back to the dance of Susan Crisp.
Susan felt a moment's frustration, then she moved around the bar and pressed her body very close to him.
"Come on-let's find a room of our own," she whispered.
"My God but you're insistent.
"Sure." She slid her arm beneath his and cuddled her breast against him. "Please, Rog."
He frowned at her, then said, "Go away, will you, please."
Patty felt as if she had been slapped. But she did not retreat. She grew more aggressive. Gently, she pressed her thighs against Roger's.
"Will you please stop that," he said, moving his leg away.
Patty felt the strong sting of rejection, a kind of adult rejection that she often encountered. But she would not lessen the contact of her body to Roger's. Instead, she increased it. Turning to face him, she deliberately widened the contact of her thigh against his leg, half-opening it in a wanton way.
"Please, child, run along, will you," he said.
"Not unless you run with me."
"I don't intend to move from this spot," he said. "And if you don't, I'll see that you do."
Patty withdrew the contact of her thighs. She turned. She pounded a small fist on the bar top and said, "This is supposed to be a 'anything goes' party, so what the hell's the matter with me-with you and me together. It's not as if I'm exactly repulsive, you know."
"Isn't it?"
She was silent.
Then he said, "You're repulsive, Patty Pen, very, very repulsive to me."
The heat of embarrassment flushed at her cheeks.
Roger looked at her, then he said, "You're repulsive to me, Patty, because you're sick. Because you're a little kid who should be home doing something little girls do-because you shouldn't be at a party like this in the first place, because you shouldn't be trying to put the blitz on me or any man-so please, just go away and leave me alone."
"Huh," she exploded. "Listen to who's talking-and after the way we found you when we came in here."
"It doesn't matter-just go away. Now. Fast."
She moved a step backwards as if she had been struck across the face again. Her fists clinched and for a minute it looked as if she were going to break into hysterical sobs. But she did not. Her body tightened, she felt its tenseness and she knew that she had to relieve that tenseness, relieve it in order to regain confidence, to feel again like the sensual being she was.
"I'll-I'll give you just one chance, Roger Harper," she said. "One chance to change your mind."
He stared straight ahead.
"And-and you'll-everyone'll be sorry if you-if you don't come with me right now."
"If you don't leave me alone this very second I'll turn you over my knee and give you the spanking you should have had years ago," he said in a monotone, still without looking at her.
Patty knew that he meant it. It did not lessen her anger and frustration, but it made her hiss an oath, clinch her hands tighter, then turn from Roger Harper and move across the room.
Patty was without a destination or a thought of one except that it should lead her to a man-any man. When she reached the center of the room, she paused and looked at the dancers and the crowd that circled them. Then she tensed again and turned, heading for the exit of the room.
The foyer was empty, but there was the noise of activity in the room beyond it. She headed in that direction and had just attained the entrance way when she bumped directly into Wayne Glenn, host of the party, whose glazed eyes brightened upon sight of the fifteen year old girl.
"Ho, ho, young lady, where do you think you're going?" Wayne exclaimed.
"In there-anywhere-anywhere there's a little excitement," she said sourly, unable to keep from flitting her eyes over the middle-aged man's body.
"You'll hardly find it in there, my dear," he said."
"In there you have only girls-girls with girls that is, and I'm very sure that's not the kind of excitement a girl like you wants."
Her eyes widened. "No, I'm not the least bit interested in girls."
"I thought not," he said. Wayne paused for a second, looking all the time at Patty's body. Then he said, "Why don't you let me show you my game room upstairs?"
"Game room? Wild game?"
"It is wild, precious."
She tilted her chin upwards and said, "Fine-I'd like that, I think."
"I'm sure you will," he answered.
Wayne Glenn hooked his arm around Patty's waist and turned her toward the stairs. Then they ascended them.
As they moved, the embarrassment and frustration of Roger Harper's rejection of her, lessened. She knew why. A man's arm was around her, obviously leading her to what would be a sexual encounter. It resurrected her confidence. The attentions of a man was the best balm for rejection suffered by a man, she sensed.
When they reached the second floor, Wayne led Patty down the long corridor. He opened the door at the end and stood aside for her to enter the room.
The room was large and, true to its name, it did contain many different types of animal heads, mostly big game obviously acquired in Africa. The room was carpeted. There was little furniture. There were several plain tables, much like those that might be used for massages.
Patty glanced up at Wayne Glenn and hoped that he would not waste time-she hated preliminaries with one to whom she was not especially attracted. Then she decided that she would keep him from wasting time.
With a little twirl, Patty moved in front of Wayne, made a small circle, then faced him. "I'm glad you brought me up here, Mr. Glenn."
"Wayne, please."
"All right. Wayne. I'm glad you brought me up here." She took the steps necessary to bring her into breast-touching closeness to him. Then she brought one small hand up to his chest. She felt the heat of his body through his shirt and dinner jacket. Then she felt his hands snap behind her and jerk her to him.
His kiss tasted odd, Patty thought as she opened her lips to receive his tongue. And his tongue tasted odd, too, she decided, then she recalled that Wayne Glenn was probably the oldest man she had ever kissed so wildly. As if to intensify this truth, she wiggled her tongue madly within his mouth. She thrust her waist forward to him, too. She felt a bit disappointed that there was no immediate hardness to touch at her. Then she deemed to make it true. She brought one hand down from the back of his neck where she had been playing her fingers against his skin. Then she dropped it between them and probed for that which she sought. Disappointment continued to reign. There still was no hardness that was yet ready to greet her anxious fingers.
Patty brought her hand back up to Wayne Glenn's neck but before she could again fingertip play there, he groaned and swooped his hands to her buttocks. He jerked her close. Then he groaned again and pushed her a bit away from him. But the separation was very brief. With a new groan, a kind of desperate cry, Wayne stooped, then lifted Patty off her feet.
Playing seductress in a lover's arms, Patty let her head fall way back. The action caused her breasts to loom up at Wayne. As he paused, then turned, Patty was surprised that he seemed so strong. Actually, he was very strong, she decided and she thought that it was such a shame that it was concealed amid an unattractive appearance.
Strongly, Wayne carried Patty across the room. He paused at a white table. Then he lowered her to it.
Patty looked around. Then she looked into Wayne's eyes. They were wild looking, much as if he had just taken a drug. But he had not. Patty knew that she was the drug, that it was her youthful body that filled the man with new vigor and wild, wild desire.
Pretending helplessness, looking the same way, Patty looked up at him and said, "What-what are you going to do to me?"
"Love you," he said. "Love you in my own particular way. You don't mind, do you?"
"No," she said softly, trying to keep the little-girl innocence in her tone. "No, I like to be loved-I have to be loved."
"Oh, good," he said enthusiastically.
Wayne's hands moved to the full length zipper at the side of her dress. He lowered it. Then, as if he were indeed assisting a child out of her clothing, he raised her and lifted the dress over her head. She stayed upright as he let the dress drop to the floor. She even arched a little so that her naked breasts and bikini-panties made a slight offering.
Wayne Glenn's eyes were busy-busy, busy, busy working over all her body. But then he could stand it no more and he quickly removed the panties. He stepped back, his eyes bugging, harsh sounds issuing from his throat, and then he bent to her stockings, garter-belt and shoes.
Patty reclined on the table as soon as she was nude. She did not know what Wayne Glenn intended for her, nor did she care. Her anger and resentment for Roger Harper was still strong. All that she could hope for that it might be reduced by some gift of love from the rotund little man who seemed so odd.
Wayne bent over Patty's body. He kissed her lips, her throat and breasts, her belly, thighs, calves, and even her feet. Then he stepped away from her.
Patty turned her head to look at him just as his head dipped out of view beneath the table. She heard the sound of a drawer opening and she knew that he was busy in the cabinet space that was built beneath the table. She moved to her back again and waited. In a moment, Wayne was looking down at her again. She turned and felt a moment's fear.
The rope that Wayne Glenn held in his right hand seemed very rough. It had thousands of harsh tufts sticking out from it. It was an inch thick and looked extremely strong.
"This won't hurt, darling," Wayne hissed at Patty. "Really it won't. You might even like it-I'll try to make you like it. This-this is a peculiarity of mine-but, you won't mind, really you won't."
"I don't mind anything," she said sternly, looking away from him and waiting.
Wayne looped the rough rope over her throat. Then he pulled it through an opening that was available under the table top and above the cabinets. He pulled the rope hard across her body. It rubbed, turning Patty's skin pink and giving it a brushed look. He looped the rope again, this time over the girl's breasts. When he pulled it tight this time, her flesh indented in the middle, flattening it while two, bloating rolls of flesh lumped at either side of the rope. And this time Wayne's tightening jerk upon the rope was such as to cut into Patty's flesh, tearing it open a bit and making blood ooze. He tied her at the waist, then at the hips, pulling the rope so tight that she was flattened to the table in a way that cramped her back. All of her body stung. It felt bruised and beaten and cut wide open. But Patty seemed oblivious to it all.
Wayne Glenn breathed hard. He stepped back a half pace and inspected his work. His eyes glistened. Patty was fettered from her neck to her hips. Only her thighs and legs were free. She waited for the rope to be brought into contact with them, too, but it did not happen. Instead, miraculously, the middle-aged man brought a touch of gentleness to her thighs. He touched her there, then cupped his hand over the vee of her femininity.
Patty felt excitement began to course throughout her body. She felt hot and anxious and very curious about Wayne's next move. His next move was another act of gentleness. He made a slight separation of her thighs, then a miniature plunge.
Patty's body stiffened beneath her ropes. She raised her legs and braced her feet on the end of the table. She tried to arch her hips, but could not for the ropes held her tightly. But the pulsation of her loins was free and unfettered. She felt herself throb against Wayne's hand.
Suddenly, he stopped the slight plunging action. He became even more delicate. He made a wider separation then moved to higher ground where he began A tender, very light, circling.
Again, Patty thrust upward, trying to increase the pressure of his caress. She could not increase it. Yet, she began to react to the strange love that Wayne Glenn was bestowing upon her body. She tensed her thighs, then relaxed them, then did it again and again. Wayne's hand sped. Patty tensed more frequently, at the same time feeling the frustration of the ropes that held her, feeling the rub of them against her nipples and navel, at her ribs and across her hips, feeling it and liking it because it seemed like a restraint upon life itself-a restraint that made her helpless before the desires of another.
And Wayne Glenn's desires were immense. And teasing; and, passion producing. When he had spun madly to an optimum speed, he slowed, then halted and did not resume the caress until Patty's body made hard, lurching motions against the ropes while she arched her quivering thighs as high as possible. Only then did he resume his caress, only then did his hand speed again.
Finally, and very abruptly, Wayne halted the action. He did not renew it until after he had fumbled at the front of his trousers and bared himself. Then, both his hands became busy, one upon Patty, the other with himself. And he matched their movements, matched their speed as he bequeathed a growing pleasure to Patty that matched that which he knew for himself and of himself.
He was gasping very hard at the end-so hard that Patty thought he would surely collapse. He bent over her, breathing the harsh breath of his exertion into her face. She returned it in a minor form, breathing hard herself but not coming close to duplicating the pant of Wayne.
Patty was looking directly into Wayne's face when the end occurred. He groaned, both hands whirling, and, while froth slobbered at the corners of his mouth, Patty tried to intensify feeling within herself, tried to react as her strange paramour was reacting, but she could not.
Wayne yelped, speeded, burst into climax, then halted all his action as he collapsed across Patty's fettered body. She lurched her hips madly, trying to capture that which had been close but was denied her. She writhed against her bindings. She flapped her thighs madly, churned and thrust and writhed and cried dry, hard sobs of passion unfulfilled. And as her body quieted, as she knew that she was denied the thrill that she had sought as antidote for Roger's rejection, a new anger burned within her-an anger that she meant to remedy as soon as she was free.
Wayne Glenn was still breathing hard as he lay across Patty when she thought of Roger Harper, when she hated him for his rejection, that which had sent her to Wayne who only left her ungratified. She thought of Roger very intently, creating an image of him, making him the subject of both her hate and her desire.
Suddenly, she felt an impatience for the ropes that held her, and impatience for Wayne Glenn's body across hers. She wanted to be free-she wanted Roger Harper-only he would do. And, she meant to find him. She wondered what he was doing.
What Roger Harper was doing as Patty Pen strained against her fetters and thought of him, was standing in the darkness of the outdoor patio and watching the red glow of a cigarette a hundred yards away.
Roger felt very drunk. Even being outside and beneath the star-studded sky didn't help much, but it did allow him respite from the party inside the house. Then he saw the cigarette and knew that another had also exited the party, had, no doubt, sought the outdoors as comfort against the gross party-capers.
The cigarette lifted, glowed bright red, faded, then was lowered. And then Roger had to find out who it was who stood alone in the darkness, who had felt as he had felt and followed his own pattern of seeking the outdoors. Whoever it was, Roger felt a kinship with that person. He wanted to see him, talk to him and tell him of that kinship.
As the cigarette was raised and glowed red again, Roger moved toward it. He stepped down from the patio and moved along the flagstone walk that trailed through the garden. Sweet scent of early summer were heavy in the night. He breathed deeply. Although pleasant to his lungs, it did not refresh him. Liquor had been too frequent and too heavy to allow any real return to sobriety for a long time.
When Roger rounded a huge bush, he paused. The silent smoker was only a few yards ahead of him. He took another step forward, then halted when he saw the dark outline of a head turn toward him, startled. The cigarette was raised and puffed again, then Roger saw it spiraling through the darkness of the night, making a high arch as it was flipped away.
He waited another second, then moved ahead. Then he stopped dead in his tracks as the moon freed itself of a cloud to cast its golden light across the face of Mona Fiken.
"Don't sneak up on me like that, Roger," she said. "I don't know but what you might have a knife in your hand."
The use of his first name jarred him a bit. He couldn't recall Mona Fiken having ever used it before. He felt strangely flattered. The kinship he had felt with the figure before identity became clear, did not die either and this added to the confusion of his drunkeness.
He smiled, then said, "No knife, I promise." He held both his hands outward.
"Then proceed," Mona said rather pleasantly, more pleasantly than Roger had ever heard it.
He approached then stopped beside her.
The moon had shaken off the cloud completely now and for the first time that evening, Roger viewed Mona closely. He was surprised that she was so pretty. Then he decided that it had to be because of the change in her voice-that the softening of that had made her seem more attractive, not even that, but really quite beautiful.
Roger turned so that he faced Mona directly from the front. Surprised, she took a step backward and jarred her back against a thick tree. She jerked forward a bit, then slackened against the tree.
A sweep of intoxication swept over Roger, making him feel quite drunk and carefree again. He grinned a funny expression, then stepped up to Mona and placed his hands on either side of her face, bracing them against the rough bark of the tree. He looked into her eyes. They were as dark as the night but glinted from the reflections of the moon.
"What is this, Dr. Harper," she asked. "An imprisonment?"
"If you like."
"I don't," she said.
"Tough," he answered roughly and leaned his face a little closer to hers.
Mona tilted her chin upward and said, "Really-you surprise me, Dr. Harper."
"Don't call me that," he said gruffly.
"Oh."
"Call me Roger like you did when you first saw me," he said in a jumble of hurrying words. "All right."
"Say it," he demanded.
"Roger Harper."
"No, just the first, please."
"You're drunk," she said. She smiled slightly and the expression was not necessarily one of criticism.
"Very good observation, Mona," he said. "Now, come join, say my name. Please."
Mona laughed and gave a gentle push against his forearm which would not budge. Then she said, "Ah, Roger, quit it, you're terribly drunk."
"There, you said it-it wasn't so hard to do, was it?"
"No," she admitted.
Lowering to her face, his elbows working outward as if he were descending in a first phase of push-ups, Rog brought his face so close to Mona's that he could feel her breath. Then he said, "Why are you such a bitch?"
"I didn't know that I was," she answered quickly.
"You are."
"Well, sorry."
"Don't be," he said, "Some girls just can't help it-they're naturally bitches."
"I suppose that's true," she said softly. "And of course, you should know-you've become quite a specialist in girls who are also bitches, I understand."
"A doctor's got to have some kind of specialty," he said.
"Yes, I suppose so," she answered.
"Mona, why are you so miserable all the time?" he asked seriously. "Honest, you make the shrew seem untameable."
She smiled at this and said, "I have many responsibilities, Roger. I take them seriously. So, I'm a shrew-or, if you like, a bitch."
"Now some bitches I like pretty well," he said, the words slurring from a new sweep of drunkenness.
"Good for you." She looked to each side. then stared into Roger's face again. "Let me go, please."
"Where you going?"
"I don't know."
"Good girl," he said jubilantly. "Nobody in this cruddy world knows where they're going so that makes you just like the rest of us."
"Not quite," she answered, turning her eyes away from his.
"Yes, you are," he insisted. "And you know, I'm mighty happy to find that you're damn near human."
She looked straight at him again. "Am I? Am I really human-just like everyone else."
"Sure."
"How do you know? You don't know anything about me; only what you see at the hospital."
"True. But I know that you're human anyway."
She did not speak. And for the barest second it seemed that she moved a fraction closer to his face.
Roger sensed her movement. He dropped his hands and laced them around her back. Then he yanked her against his body.
Mona did not give the kiss that Roger expected. Her head shook from side to side, warding him off, burying her mouth into his shoulder, trying to deny him her lips. But Roger released one hand from her back and brought it to her chin. He held it firmly, then brought his mouth down hard upon hers.
For perhaps a full minute there was still the strain of her resistance. Her head continued to move from side to side, but Roger maintained his grasp upon her mouth. And suddenly, as if resolution had taken her, the squirming of her body stopped. She arched her thighs directly at the hard bulge that stuck out from his trousers. Her lips softened and opened and then curled about his tongue as he plunged it to her.
She drew upon him violently. Rog's head buzzed with wonder and mystery and confusion. All that seemed real was the scent of the garden, the night, the girl-body pressing against him and the great, passionate things she conveyed to him with her kiss. And it conveyed energy to him, too. He gripped her hard at the back again, placing his hands on her buttocks so that he could undulate her back and forth against the hard, desiring point of him. She did not resist it, seemed even to welcome it for Roger had the impression that if his hands did not guide her, she would move of her own accord against him.
Mona Fiken did not create a new struggle until Roger thrust his knee between her thighs, then attempted to pull her down to the ground. Then she fought. Hard at first, but constantly diminishing in power until at last Rog had his way-had her squirming upon the damp, garden ground.
As if he were pouncing upon a fumble, Rog made a leap and landed atop Mona. Her fighting quieted. She looked into his eyes.
"What do you want of me?" she asked. "Do you try to make love to all the women you hate?"
"I don't hate you," he said solemnly.
"You hate me and you hate my uncle. You hate Riverdale but you don't have the guts to say it-or to even do anything about it."
Her words cut. He stopped them by reclamping his mouth on hers. And as he lay atop hr, he began again that inward-outward push of himself against her thighs. Soon, the touch was returned as Mona, digging her heels into the ground, raised and lowered to his rhythm. Her arms went around his neck; her breasts raised to crush against his chest; her tongue convulsed in his mouth.
And Roger became incensed at her touch, to the feel of her, to the love-hate aspects of his closeness to the girl he had always loathed. He fought his hands to her skirt, grabbed the hem, pushed it upward and was delightedly in awe when he found that she was without underclothing-it was so unlike her, so wild and hopeful and passionate. He grasped hard at her thighs and when they offered new resistance, he pressed hard, separating them, making them go nearly flat upon the ground. Then he boosted himself a bit and was moving forward, pausing to liberate himself then moving forward again, closer to the mad prize of Mona Fiken. And then it had nearly been accomplished: He was touching at warmth and steeling himself for the thrill of her total giving. But it was never realized.
Mona cried out, gave a mighty twist and scooted from beneath Roger's descending strength. He fell forward into the cool earth, groaned, rolled over and knew that he could not get up, that he could not move, knew that drinking and confusion and the sudden awareness and difference of Mona Friken, had been too much, had been more than any man could stand. He could only give himself to unconsciousness-he could only slupp-he knew that this was all he could do.
He groaned once more, then sagged into the exhaustion of heavy sleep. As he drifted off, he felt very alone.
Had Roger Harper remained conscious even another few seconds, he would have been amazed to find that Mona cried, then sobbed softly as she gathered his head into her lap and gently stroked his brow, stroked it with a touch of love and gentleness and concern, as if she were comforting a truly loved being, one who had never known the sharp sting of her hate.