Chapter 3
THERE WAS MORE DRINKING AND SEXING before the night was over. Never once, during the entire time, did Andy and Liz have a chance to talk privately to each other.
When it was time to go home, Liz fell asleep almost as soon as she sat down in the car. Andy had to struggle to keep his eyes open-and the car on the road during the drive to their house.
When he brought the car to a stop in his driveway, Andy nudged his wife. She opened her eyes and looked around. ' "We're home," he said.
"Oh. Mmmmm..." She let her eyes fall closed, and she leaned back against the seat once more. "Come on. Let's get out." She didn't respond.
He grasped her shoulder and gave it a shake. "Liz!" Wake up!" "Oh. Yeah. All right ... "
He got out and walked around the car. She had opened the door but hadn't begun to get out. Her eyelids were fluttering.
Well, there would be no talking to her tonight. He could tell that.
If he was gallant-and not so drunk and tired himself-he would have carried her into the house. But he didn't feel gallant in the least, and, anyway, he could hardly move.
He leaned into the car and grasped her arm. "Come on, Liz, doddammit."
"Uuh," she said, and made the effort to climb out.
He closed the door and helped support her as they walked to the side door of their ranch-style home. He fumbled for his keys and made several stabs at the keyhole before he got the key into it.
They went directly to the bedroom, and Liz flopped onto the bed, fully clothed. She rolled onto her side and drew her knees up slightly.
He thought about undressing her, then decided to hell with it. He stripped to his shorts and tumbled in beside her. The lamps on her vanity table remained burning, but this didn't seem to bother them. Both fell immediately into an exhausted, alcoholic sleep.
When Andy awoke, he was aware first of a throbbing headache. His eyes hurt when he opened them to the light streaming in through the bedroom windows.
He turned painfully on the pillow and discovered that Liz wasn't beside him. He blinked and lay still for a few moments, listening. He heard nothing. Now he stretched farther, groaned from the discomfort of it, and focused on the clock which stood on Liz's night table.
Shit, it was almost eleven o'clock! But it was Sunday, so that was all right.
He tried to sit up, groaned and fell back. He listened some more, wondering where his wife was. He didn't hear anything.
Had she gotten up, gotten dressed and walked out on him? Was that possible?
The answer of course was yes. Anything was possible after the kind of night they had spent. But if she had left him, it would be completely unfair. What had happened wasn't his fault.
Was it hers?
That required a little thought. If she hadn't let Tom get cozy with her, he would never have made a play for Eloise. She wasn't all that great.
He tried to weigh the rights and wrongs of what had happened and to be completely fair. But with his head thumping, he could hardly have solved a third grade arithmetic problem, let alone a complex question of ethics.
One thing was certain: Liz was at least as much to blame as he was.
And how about Tom and Eloise Baird! What pigs! Before last night, Andy hadn't suspected they would carry on that way. And he knew Tom pretty well, having worked with him for over eight months and visited in his home a couple of times.
The need to piss forced Andy to make the supreme effort and get out of bed. His head started to spin lazily, and the throbbing increased. He felt his way along the edge of the bed and across the room to the adjoining bath.
Liz wasn't there. He still hadn't heard her.
He walked up to the John, pulled his peter out of his shorts, and pissed. The urine streamed out of him until it seemed that he had peed a gallon. He felt better. Pushing the flush handle of the toilet, he turned and weaved back into the bedroom.
He stopped and looked at the bed, then at the clock. Shit, he would have to get dressed. Aspirin and a shower would help.
He returned to the bathroom, took the aspirin bottle out of the medicine cabinet and shook two, then three of the white tablets in, pulled a paper cup out of the wall dispenser and drew some water. Several gulps chased the aspirin down.
He cleared his throat and looked at himself in the mirror.
Oh, God!
He turned away and opened the stall shower and took off his shorts. He turned on the spray, adjusted it for temperature and volume, then stepped in.
Gradually he did feel better as the tepid water streamed down over him and the aspirin took hold. The improvement of his physical condition only made it possible for him to think more intently about last night, however, and this added to his troubled state. He still was unable to reach any firm conclusion.
He was a little more steady on his feet when he emerged from the shower. He toweled himself and walked nude into the bedroom. He found a robe and slipped it on. Belting the tie, he headed into the hall, in search of Liz.
He found her in the kitchen, seated at the table and staring at a cup of black coffee. She was fully dressed. "Well ... ? " he said.
She glanced up at him. "God, I was so drunk last night." "I guess we all were."
He found a cup and carried it to the percolator, which stood on the tile drain board next to the sink. He poured the coffee and carried it to the table.
"I was really out of my head," Liz said.
"Were you?" He sat down.
She kept looking at her cup from which steam was lazily curling. "I don't remember everything that happened, but I remember enough to know I was very drunk."
"You didn't act that drunk."
Slowly her gaze lifted to his.
"I mean," he explained, "you seemed to know what you were doing."
"Is that how I acted-as if I knew what I was doing?"
He forced a shallow grin. "Let's not play games, okay? You screwed Tom and I had his wife. What's more, we enjoyed it."
She colored a little. "Maybe you did!"
"Bullshit, baby!" he exclaimed. "You enjoyed yourself, too."
"Oh, you're sure of that, are you?"
"Damned right! I was watching you rather closely."
"And you think the whole thing was my fault?"
"No. Not the whole thing. Oh, hell, Liz ... let's not talk about fault. I don't know if anybody was at fault, really. We did what we wanted to do at the moment, and I guess no one was hurt."
She studied him.
He picked up his coffee, took a slow slip and made a face.
When he glanced at her again, she was looking down, moving the cup on the table top.
"I was drunk," she said carefully. "Very drunk. I'm not responsible for what happened. I didn't want it. Good Lord, Tom is old enough to..."
"Old enough to give you what you needed," Andy said. "Jesus, but that guy was oral!"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"I think we should," he answered quickly. "I think we should talk it all out." He lifted his cup again and took a larger sip this time.
She was watching him when he looked up. He forced another smile.
"That swapping was something else," he said. "Especially when all of us went at it in the same bed. Christ!"
"You liked it," she accused.
His expression turned vicious. "Damned right. And so did you." "No!" "Yes!"
They stared at each other.
"You wanted it to happen," he said. "You went along with it from the start. You enjoyed yourself. Don't try to cop out now."
"How about you?" she shot back. "Oh, the way you were going after Eloise!"
"Sure. After I saw you let Tom feel you up. What did you think I was going to do-play the part of the only puritan in the house?"
"Puritan!" She laughed bitterly. "You were sure a far cry from that."
"So were you. So where does it leave us? That's what I want to discuss."
"Well, I don't!" she huffed and started to stand.
He grasped her arm. "Stay here. Damn it, if I want to talk, we're going to talk!"
He didn't often get tough with her this way. She blinked and went limp in the chair. He withdrew his hand.
"That's more like it," he said. "Now ... you wanted to ball with Tom and you did it. I went along, too. I admit that. And I enjoyed myself."
"You're still putting most of the blame on me," Liz argued, "and that isn't fair. I tell you, I was stoned!"
"Were you stoned when you went to bed with Roger Ford?"
His throwing of that name at her after all this time stunned Liz.
"Well, were you?" he demanded.
"How dare you! We agreed we would never talk about him again."
He laughed a little bitterly. "All bets are off now. This is a new ball game."
"Then, how about Sally Turner?"
"Let's talk about Roger first," he insisted. "That day I came home early and caught you with him..."
It was ten months ago, on a lazy spring afternoon, when Andy came home unexpectedly from a field meeting and found his wife with the other man.
Roger was a friend of them both, which made it just that much more sticky.
Up to that point in their three-year marriage, Andy had believed-or perhaps assumed was the better word-that Liz had been completely faithful. Before they were engaged, she had screwed others, but they had agreed this didn't matter.
Catching her with Roger Ford, on the bed where she and Andy made love nearly every night, was an altogether different kettle of fish.
Andy had entered the house quietly. When he didn't find Liz in the kitchen or living room, he assumed she was in the bedroom tidying up or getting dressed after her customary afternoon bath. He decided to have some fun by surprising her in there, so he didn't call out, but crept down the hall without making a sound.
As he approached the open bedroom doorway, there were sounds to be heard-passionate, lustful sounds coming from the bedroom.
He stopped in his tracks and listened.
Liz was murmuring, "Oh, what a beautiful cock ... so stiff and long ... I love it. . . "
"You made it stiff-these beautiful titties of yours and this butt that seemed to belong in my hands. God, Liz, I've wanted you for so long!"
Andy recognized the man's voice immediately, and the realization that this man was one of his best friends filled him with rage. But he didn't rush into the bedroom and lunge at Roger's throat. Andy wasn't an animalistic person who reacted on the most basic level.
Besides, there was curiosity mingled with his anger ... and sexual arousal, too. His wife was in bed with another man, and his wife was a very exciting woman. Perhaps some husbands would have been blind to this fact in these circumstance, but Andy wasn't, even though he was angry.
He moved closer to the door and listened more intently.
"Mmmmm, it makes me shiver," Liz said, still referring to Roger's cock. "I stroke it like this with my hand and imagine it's inside me."
"It wants to be inside you," Roger said. "Look at it quiver."
"It's jerking! Oh, Roger..."
There were the sounds of mouth kissing.
Andy edged closer.
"How does this make you feel?" Roger whispered huskily after the kiss had ended.
"Warm," Liz murmured. "Oh ... hot! That finger ... there! Right there! God, that's right on my button."
"A cute little button it is."
"Keep touching it," she panted. "Yes! Oh, God! ... oh, I need a hard pounding."
"You'll get a hard pounding, baby," he promised, his voice assuming a deeper, stronger tone. It was evident that he was about to mount her. "You're gonna get all my prick inside you."
"I want it!" Liz stated in a most emphatic way.
"Now?"
"Yes, now!" She panted.
Andy heard the bed creak. He eased up to the door jamb and looked into the room.
His line of vision proceeded over a foot-corner of the bed and across it to the opposite head-corner. He had an excellent point of vantage to observe everything that happened, without being seen by either of the participants.
Andy's cock hardened as Roger Ford mounted his wife. He gazed at Liz with her knees up and her thighs split wide. Her moist, rosy cU'nt gaped in its forest of black curls. Roger, completely nude, was swinging to position between her legs. His cock, high and stiff, bobbed and swayed.
Liz's hands grasped it, aiming at her hungry hole.
Andy stared, fascinated, as Roger's cock nudged into that soft rosy orifice and gradually sank into Liz's lathered depths. He gazed at the expression on his wife's face-it was one of abject lust.
Damn her! he thought. Oh, damn that beautiful bitch!
Andy's cock stood high in his pants, pushing against the cotton broadcloth of his shorts, as Roger's cock went into action inside Liz. Andy's throat was tight; he still pounded with rage. But he continued to stand where he was and watch in erotic fascination.
Roger's naked rump circled and bounded between Liz's steepled legs. Now she lifted those legs and knotted them over his back. Her moist, black-fringed pussy moved up and down the pumping prick. As the prick pulled out, Andy could see his wife's rosy cunt lips turn outward with it; as the rod sank, it drew those cunt lips along.
From the way Liz's twat reached eagerly for the man's prick-lunges, it was clear that the illicit bedroom ball had been as much her doing as his. This was no case of an unscrupulous male taking advantage of a naive, trusting woman.
Liz's eyes were gently closed, her expression rapt as she twisted and turned, her lush lips parted and panting. Roger screwed her slowly, powerfully and well, taking as much time as the act required, but not dragging it.
Midway through, he began to talk ... and she replied gaspingly:
"What a ... wonderful ... warm little ... cunt," he breathed in time with his plunges.
"Oh, it loves your prick," she told him.
"I love ... to screw you."
"I love your screwing ... oh, Roger! Screw me! Screw me! Split me ... right in two!" He moved harder.
Andy's prick was so stiff and throbbing that it almost pained him. But he didn't touch it. As he perversely enjoyed the spectacle of his wife writhing beneath this other man and eagerly accepting his cock, he thought of what this meant to their future, and what it suggested about their past. It seemed to imply that he hadn't done a proper job of satisfying her, and yet she had always been passionate with him, and she had never complained afterward or acted as if she hadn't reached a satisfying orgasm. He would never feel just the same toward her again. He would know she was harboring thoughts and wishes-illicit cravings-which she never spoke to him about. They couldn't possibly be as close to each other as they used to be.
What about Roger? What price would he pay for this?
The embarrassment of being caught and confronted in the midst of his sin. That was all. Andy wasn't the sort to beat up another man. Anyway, he wasn't at all sure he could take Roger, even after catching him in a weakened, screwed-out state.
No. There would be no fight. Andy would simply order him out of the house, and they would most-likely never speak again.
Andy continued to watch, fascinated, as Roger screwed Liz harder and harder, making the innerspring mattress sigh and the bed's fittings creak.
"Oh! Oh! Oh, God, oh!" Liz cried, and Andy knew she was having it.
Did she look that way when she climaxed with him? He tried to remember. When he gazed down at her face, at close range, it seemed different ... but maybe that was because he was intimately involved. Now that he viewed the spectacle as a bystander, it made quite a difference.
Roger finished with a grinding thrust and an almost-brutal cry of lust. His hard buttocks compressed, and they jerked several times as he emptied his lust into Liz's cunt.
Then it was all over. The two participants ... and the bed ... were quiet. Andy was left standing there with a massive hard-on, breathing heavily, his throat tight and perspiration dotting his forehead, though the day was not at all that warm.
He forced himself to step into the bedroom right then, just as he was.
Liz saw him first. She gasped, clutched Roger and froze for a moment. Then she tried frantically to get him off her or to slide out from under him.
Roger turned. His face was an interesting study. Andy might have laughed if he weren't so caught up in hate, arousal and consternation over the fact that Liz had treated him this way.
As a result of Liz's pushing and a sudden lurch on Roger's part, he fell off her and she scooted to the edge of the bed. She stood up and-humorously, it seemed to Andy-pulled a sheet in front of her as she confronted him. It was okay for Roger to see her stripped ... and to screw her, for that matter ... but it was indecent for her to face her husband without cover.
Roger bounded to his feet, also. He didn't attempt to hide his nakedness.
Andy said, "This is something I would never have expected." He gazed accusingly at Liz and paid no attention to her illicit lover.
She became defiant, tossing her hair back and lifting her head high. "All right! It was wrong, but you know why I did it."
"No," he said. "I don't."
"Oh, don't you? Think hard. Remember the other night, when you were working late..." A look of grim satisfaction came over her face.
He thought, My God! How could she have known?
She answered his unspoken question:
"I woke up during the night. You were uncovered. You had lipstick smears on your body. Do you want me to tell you where they were?"
He stood dumbly. The situation had neatly been turned. A few moments ago, he had been the accuser and Liz had stood convicted of infidelity. Now she was accusing him, and he had no defense.
"The lipstick was on your belly," she declared, "and lower than that. You had yourself quite a time with that woman, whoever she was."
Andy looked at Roger.
Roger grinned apologetically. "I'm sorry, old man. This is a hell of a thing. I wouldn't have had you walk in on us this way for anything in the world."
"Sure," Andy said dryly. All the righteous wrath had left him, along with his erotic arousal.
Liz, now faintly triumphant, drew the sheet close about her and walked to the bathroom. She closed the door.
Andy stared after her for a moment, neither he nor Roger moving or speaking. Then he turned and left the room. He left the house and climbed into his car. He drove to a nearby bar and began to drink.
The next day, when he and Liz talked it over, they made a pact: The event of the day before and his affair with a girl at his office-one Sally Tanner-would both be forgotten, on the condition that neither of them would step out again.
He even quit the firm where he had been working and took a new job. But he didn't keep his part of the bargain for long. Less than three months later, he was involved with another woman.
Now for all he knew, Liz was screwing around with other men during the same period. She had certainly taken to Tom eagerly enough...
"So you see," he said, "We're both a couple of screw-arounds at heart. We may as well admit it. But from now on, instead of screwing around individually, let's do it together."
"Wh-what do you mean?" She blinked.
"Swap with other couples, like we did last night. The Bairds were looking for that kind of fun, and there must be others. There probably are a lot of them. I understand there are clubs that a couple can join."
She raised her head haughtily. "Oh, no!"
"Well, we're going to do something. There's to be no more pretense of fidelity, now that we each know what the other is like. That would be stupid and it would never work."
"You're saying, in other words, that you want to play with other women," she accused.
"Sure. Just like you want to play with other men, whether you're honest enough to admit it or not."
They stared at each other.
Liz couldn't deny that her husband had spoken the truth. And the idea of more swapping appealed to her, though she felt she couldn't come out and say so. But she didn't want to join a swappers' club. What had happened with Tom and Eloise was all right; a club would be too impersonal ... and risky.
"The club is out," she said.
"All right. I think there are better ways, anyhow. Maybe Tom has some ideas."
"You're going to talk with Tom about it?" She acted shocked.
"Why not? He saw us as we really were last night-why, shouldn't we talk about it?"
"Well, we have to be careful. If any of the women I know in this neighborhood were to find out. . . "
"Don't worry. I wouldn't want our neighbors to know, either."
"You think Tom and Eloise may have some other friends who swap?"
"Maybe. The way they acted last night, I doubt if we're their first playmates."
"It seems ... so depraved," Liz said.
"No more depraved than you screwing Roger."
"Or you screwing Sally?"
"All right."
It was rather refreshing, Andy decided, to have everything out in the open at last.
"As a matter-of-fact," he went on, "swapping is less depraved than just cheating around. This way there are no lies, no deception, and each of us has an equal amount of fun."
She turned away. "Talk with Tom if you want to," she said softly.
"And you'll play the game with me?"
There was only a short pause before she answered, "Yes."