Chapter 4
Cara Lisa crossed the ground between the costume van and the Chadwick unit in a little-girl run, half-skipping and half-hopping as she ran. Her Italian hiking boots kicked up pine needles and little puffs of dust. She ran under the big awning and up the steps, opened the door and yelled out excitedly.
"Burt, I'm going to take a walk with Selma. I'll be back by tea time." She stood there until her husband's voice replied from the bathroom.
"All right, cara mia. But be careful. Remember everything you were taught about the woods."
"Yes, darling. Don't work too hard while I'm gone. It's quite hot outside." She was out the door and across the patio before Burton could reach the entrance. He watched as she skipped and ran to the costume van. Selma Masters, the wardrobe mistress, came out and joined her, and the two figures moved into the trees and out of sight.
Burton felt a little old after watching her youthful exuberance, but he was refreshed by his morning shave and shower, and gaining additional refreshment from the huge glass of iced orange juice and vodka he carried with him.
He walked to the stereo set and turned on some quiet music, then sat to relax a bit before going in to his shooting notes. He slowly sipped the bittersweet drink and let his mind organize itself for the day.
Someone rang the door chime and he got up reluctantly to see who it was. When he opened the door, June Boughton stood there. No, Benedict.
June Benedict. He ought to remember that by this time. She looked very appealing in her brief shorts and halter of peacock blue; the matching ribbon in her hair accented the blue of her eyes. She seemed a little embarrassed.
"Are you... terribly busy, Mr. C? Can you spare a few minutes?" She wet her lips rather nervously, he thought.
"June, you know I'm never too busy to spare a few minutes for you. Come in." She stepped inside hesitantly, waited until he closed the door, then followed him over to the stereo as he started to turn it off.
"No, don't, please. It's very soothing music, and I'm a little nervous this morning." Burton smiled at her understandingly.
"I'll get you something for that," he told her. Before she could protest he had disappeared. In what seemed seconds he returned holding out a tinkling glass of tomato-colored liquid. "Here. Bloody Mary. Guaranteed to help a little; intended to help a lot. Now, sit down and relax, June."
"I... I know you'll think I'm not... playing cricket, Mr. C, but... "
"Now, just a moment, June," he interrupted. "You're in my home, not at the office. There are no other studio personnel here, so we'll dispense with the formality, please. Tell Burt about it; he's a good sort and he'll do all he can for you." He grinned at her disarmingly, and she got his point.
After years of working together, they had a mutual respect for each other, recognizing capabilities and efficiencies. And they always played the employer-employee roles around other studio people. But at moments when they were discussing the fine points of some decision, they were more like a team. At those times it was "June" and "Burt" instead of "Miss Boughton" and "Mr. Chadwick," or "Mr. C," more commonly.
"Burt, I know it's not good form to do what I came here to do. But... well, I'm just not constructed like the actors who play the silly game of pseudo-nonchalance with you directors and producers."
Burton decided to forego the comment that came to mind when she compared her construction with that of actors. Instead, he continued to smile and nod his head encouragingly.
"What I wanted to find out, if it doesn't betray any confidences, is the status of Buccaneer Wench."
"Oh, yes. Our little sea saga. One thing I'm sure of is that the damn title has to go. We surely can do better than that. But I imagine Mort is getting a little testy about scheduling after the long, loud silence, huh?" June nodded with her glass to her mouth, then realized she had practically drained it.
"I haven't let myself think about it for the past few months because it looked as if there would be some litigation over our rights to the script. The author's first wife-or do you call her his first widow?-claims that the book was part of the settlement which gives her all rights to the manuscript. But after Hal's memo last week, I realized that he knew nothing of the sword over our head and was proceeding with the groundwork, spending his money right and left.
"So I got in touch with my solicitors in Nassau and they've turned up positive proof that the book was originally copyrighted after Clarke's divorce. So we're in the clear."
"Then we'll be shooting it before long?" she asked, still showing signs of nervousness. "And Mort's still considered for the part of... "
"Of course Mort has the part!" he interrupted. "Didn't I tell him that ages ago? But of course, after no word for so long, even I would have begun to doubt. I should have said something to him." Here Burton got up and began to pace slowly around the room.
"I'm such a bloody hybrid, June, that you'll have to forgive some of my incongruities. I have to play the silly damn Hollywood game with most actors and all agents, yet my instinct in dealing with friends always reverts to my earlier British ways. I took it for granted that Mort knew he had the part once I'd given him my word. But of course he... " Chadwick looked piercingly at her and took a deep pull on his drink.
"Are we letting our hair down good and proper, June?" he asked.
"I guess we should have no sparring between us, Burt," she agreed. "You did imply that you considered Mort a friend, for which I'm grateful."
"Of course. How could I feel otherwise about a damned good actor who has the same appreciation of female beauty as myself? Look, June girl, Mort hasn't been getting the kind of parts he deserves; we all know that. But those are some of the breaks of the profession. Yet I think he has the guts to ride it out, and eventually he'll get a damn sight farther up the bloody ladder.
"I think the half-breed bit he's doing in the lumberjack thing could well get him some decent scripts. And I'm sure they'll all sit up and take notice of what he does with the pirate thing, too. But he's fairly high-strung, our Mort, and if he isn't busy enough he's too liable to introspection. Maybe knowing the sea story will probably be in production before the year's out will help him calm down a bit."
"Oh, yes, Burt! I'm sure it will. But could you... "
"Could I tell him about it without letting him know you had to prime the old pump for him? Of course. A man like Mort is too proud to accept his wife's going to bat for him. Which is ridiculous, of course; he should be proud that he has a wife who cares that much about him. But that's an actor for you. Now, just relax and leave it to Burtie. I'll make a point of bumping into him today and giving him the 'by the way, old chap' bit."
"Burt, you're an absolute darling!" June cried, jumping to her feet and embracing him impulsively. She meant it sincerely. After the years she had worked with him, she should have known what a doll he really was. But that one pass he had made at her, so long ago, had caused her to wear suspicion-colored glasses when looking at him as anything but an employer.
Burton automatically returned her embrace. And the moment her blonde hair brushed his neck, swirling its scent around his head, he felt an emptiness in his guts. And it was not by any means made better by the ripenesses of her breasts- completely bra-less under the thin material of her halter-pressing through his filmy silk shirt into his chest.
He couldn't for the life of him think of anything clever to say, and his hands seemed to move of their own accord, slipping caressingly down her back to cup her buttocks appreciatively.
She was having involuntary reactions of her own, too. The impact of suddenly changing her opinion of him as a man had weakened her automatic defenses. No longer was he the typical film executive who made passes at his office girls. He was now not only a respected employer but a friend with sensitivity and integrity.
June found herself pressing her pelvis snugly against him and was shocked at her actions even as she accepted the naturalness of them. After all, Burton was a real man, and she was a real woman, free and unfettered by Morton's statement of last night.
"June... lovely, desirable June!" Burton was whispering in her ear as his hands caressed her buttocks adoringly. "Are you opening the door to me after all this time?"
"Yes! Oh, yes, Burt. I want you!"
"It's not just... gratitude?" he asked fearfully, hating himself for putting the suspicion into words. But he was too proud to take her on any terms but those he considered right: she had to want him as a man.
"Oh, no!" she husked, too needful of him now to feel anger at the implication of his question, for she knew his pride had dictated his speech. "I'm just realizing that I've wanted you to take me all these years." Her hands slid lower on his back as she spoke. Now one of them slipped between their bellies and found the hard cylinder that had been pressing into her.
She massaged the rigid outline of his cock through his slacks until he groaned. Their lips met and smeared wetly together as his hands started to undo her shorts. She was glad she had only one other string to pull in order to be nude for him. She wanted to feel him against her, all over her. right away!
Burton led her in slow steps, moving to the soft waltz music from the stereo speakers, until they were at the big sofa. He sat her down and seated himself beside her. His hands finished slipping off her shorts over her ankles, then he unfastened her bra-like halter.
"You're even more beautiful to look at than I've imagined all these years," he told her. Then his lips were on her breasts, and she was breathing with difficulty as the tingling sensations crept over her, downward and outward, to center in her female organs somewhere and heat her whole body like a furnace.
"Oh kiss them, Burt... suck them!" His lips and tongue were scalding her sensitive nipples, erecting them to full ripeness. Her hands were fumbling with his fly, trying to reach his cock.
"Junie, Junie," he mumbled as his lips glided downward from her breasts, kissing softly over her belly, moving inevitably into the lush blonde forest that cushioned her pubic mound.
He slid to his knees on the carpet and his slacks fell around them, announcing that June had managed to unzip his fly and unbutton the flap on his beltless pants. Her thighs opened to him as she brought her knees up onto the sofa. She was dying to have him touch her cunt, to bring relief for the indescribable itch that had begun to tingle there.
"My God! How lovely!" he cried, watching as the pale strands of her hair became a darker canyon of swelling, moistening flesh. He uttered a hoarse cry and plunged his mouth into the sweet chasm of her cunt.
"Burt! Oh, Burtie!" June moaned. His tongue was stroking the inner surfaces of her vulva, easing the itch but creating an even more maddening sensation deep inside her. He plunged his tongue into her vagina and stroked it in and out, then sucked at the entrance powerfully.
She gasped as the sensations tore through her. Just as she thought he had stirred her to the utmost, he seized the slippery clitoris and sucked at it hungrily.
"Eat it! Oh, lover, eat it up!" she cried, moaning and gasping as he shifted and changed the technique constantly, until she was sure he would drive her out of her mind.
She could feel the cream flowing around his tongue, mixing with the saliva of his greed, and then she was lifted onto a cloud as her orgasmic climb rocketed. The whole world pivoted around her as she spiraled upward. Then it all exploded as she was drawn into a giant knot, her back arched, her pelvis thrust into the consuming mouth that ate of her tingling, pulsing vulva.
"Oh-h-h!" she cried, and went limp.
She felt Burton's kisses on her thighs and belly. Then his hands were stroking her calmingly and she let the convulsions inside her gradually fade until they stopped.
She felt the weight of his pelvis as he pressed his body to hers, and knew he had removed his clothes. She felt the hard tip of his cock as it pushed into the tender petals of her ravished pussy.
"Push it in, Burt!" she cheered, "Oh, I want it in me!"
He pushed, and she felt the fullness of him as it spread her passage, opening the elastic tunnel to accommodate its shape, plowing slowly but relentlessly onward. The wet, heated poultice of her vagina was a soothing balm to the aching rigidity of his cock, and he savored every second of the initial penetration.
"It's a bit of heaven, that," he told her reverently as he thrilled to the feel of her passage clasping snugly around him. In fact, as her vaginal muscles clasped him milkingly, he feared he could not last much longer.
"Oh, do it, Burt!" she cried. "Screw it into me!" Her ass was working against the sofa in a rotating movement, then she drove upward to meet his plunges. She was frantic, for she felt herself coming again and wanted desperately to milk the seed from him before she lost track of reality.
"Burtie! Pour it out! Squirt it into me!" she pleaded as she started up the spiral path once more. And as she reached the very top, just before the bottom fell from under her, she felt the hot gush of his first spurt and knew a great gladness.
He held her tightly and kept the head of his cock buried in one spot as it ejaculated his fluid into her pulsing, convulsing depths. His cry of victory mingled with hers as she gave a final arched-back pressure to aid him in sealing himself to her.
The glue of their union stuck them together for several minutes after both were limp and spent. Then they stirred slowly and their gazes met as their eyes opened and focused at close range.
"For the first time in all the years I've been near you, I really know you," he told her.
"This is the only way a man and woman can know the final truth about each other, they say."
"Whatever they say," Burton replied, "I think I like you better than ever, now that I know how much a woman you truly are."
"You know," she said thoughtfully, "I always believed that if this happened between a woman and the man she worked for, there would be something lost between them... I mean as far as their respect for each other is concerned. But I find myself feeling a kind of added respect for you now."
"Perhaps it depends on the parties involved, and how lucky they are," he suggested.
"Perhaps you're right," she said. "Do you suppose you could take a little of your weight off "Oh. Sorry," he lifted himself off her. Too late he remembered their connection. The sucking plop as it was broken had a visual accompaniment. The syrupy fluids of their completions splattered over them, the sofa and the carpet.
"Oohh!" June breathed. "We'd better clean that up quickly before it dries."
"You go on into the shower," he told her. "I'll take care of that. It's largely my own output, I should imagine."
"Don't be too sure," she countered. "I was juicing up a storm, myself."
"You know, I believe you?" he laughed. "And it's a tasty kind of juice you rain when you're storming like that."
"I think I'd better go shower with that kind compliment on my mind. It almost makes me want to start all over again."
"I'll join you in the shower, if you really mean that," he threatened, wondering if he could recuperate soon enough to make good his threat.
"Let's just enjoy this much for now," she said wisely. "We can have more to look forward to that way."
"I've been telling people for years that I have the smartest secretary alive. Now I know I'm right. Chase along, then."
She found her way to the shower while Burton got a cloth and water and worked on the stains that darkened the fabric of the sofa and carpeting. lie could hear the shower as the stream fell alternately on the walls and on her soft flesh. It was all he could do to restrain his impulse to join her. There was so much he wanted to do with her, so many joys he had imagined initiating her into over the years.
But he found that he had acquired a new patience as far as June was concerned. The pure, natural joy of their completion was a promise in itself.
After all, with two reasoning people who liked enjoyment, was it not a foregone conclusion that what they had found to be so very enjoyable they would repeat at another time?
Burton whistled as he wound up his cleaning task, then he went out and mixed June another Bloody Mary and himself another screwdriver. When she came out of the shower, her briefs and halter were draped on the guest-towel rack. And when she joined Burton, he was dressed again. He gestured toward her drink.
"Shall we have a final libation before you start your official duties of the day?" he asked.
"Thank you. Schedule still as planned?"
"Yes. Just pass out the copies you ran off Thursday, then take the rest of the day off. And make sure Selma gets her copy direct. She's out walking with Lisa. You know how she is about overlooking pieces of paper that appear in her van." He chuckled merrily.
"Yes," June laughed with him. "I'll present her copy to her personally when she gets back."
"Oh, there's something else you can do, after all," he remembered. "Tell Gurney when he comes onto the location area that I have had to accept a stunt man as standby. Now, wait a minute." He held up a restraining hand. "I know he'll raise hell. But the studio insisted. If everything goes according to plan, Gurney can do all of his own bits. But if we can't find the safe spots to shoot the falls and climbs, he'll have to go along with my decision on using the pro."
"Oh, boy! Thanks for the soft assignment," she said, grinning wryly. "Now, Junie, you can handle Gurney like no one I know."
"Thanks also for the vote of confidence. Well... " She drained her glass and got to her feet. "And thanks for the beautiful experience, Burt."
"Thank you, June, darling. I'll treasure today's memory like few others in my life. Take it easy now. We don't start shooting for two more days, and we all need time to get used to this altitude."
"Don't I know it," she agreed, going to the door.
"And June," he added, coming up to kiss her hand as she left. "Play it cool around Mort for an hour or so, and I'll set his mind at ease about the star role."
"Great, Burt. Thanks again. See you later."
She left, and before he closed the door on the view of her departing figure, Burton drank in the beauty of her liquid movements. Lisa was a wonderful wife and a great lay, but June was something special all her own...