Chapter 12

Jeff drove to the airport at Redding and from there, placed a call to his wife.

"Where are you?" she demanded. "Betty and her husband are itching for another four-way romp. In fact ..." She laughed wickedly. "George suggested that we all share the same bed-he and Betty on top, then turnabout. What do you think?" She tittered again.

"I think it smells."

There was silence.

"I told you to get rid of them," he said, "but I knew you wouldn't. So I'm the one who's leaving."

"Jeff, you can't!"

"Like hell. I'm at the airport now. A flight takes off for Los Angeles in ten minutes, and I'm going to be on it."

"I didn't think you meant it, darling, when you told me to ask the Finstads to leave. You were very drunk, you know."

"Well, I'm sober now. Call the company on Monday, will you, and tell them where the car is. I'll tuck the keys under the floor mat."

"I .. .don't understand. You're going to work Monday?"

"Dad fired me."

"That's wonderful! Now we can all go back to L.A. I'll tell Lupe to start packing."

"You can do what you like, but I won't be at the apartment when you get there. I need a long time to think. I believe you do, too."

"This sounds a little serious," she remarked, her own tone suddenly subdued.

"It's as serious as things can get between a husband and wife. The truth is, Sophia, that I'm not happy. I've never been happy, really. All this time. I've just been kidding myself."

"Well, what do you expect me to do?"

"I don't know. The problem's mine."

"It's sure going to be yours if you walk out on me. I'll never take you back, Jeff. You'd better believe that. And when I get you in court, I'll milk you for every penny you've got or ever will have."

"Fine. I'm glad you said that. It makes everything much easier." He hung up the telephone.

On the flight to Los Angeles there was a prettier stewardess than the one who had served on the flight north, several days before. But Jeff hardly gave her derriere a glance. It might have been molded from foam rubber, for all he cared.

He could still feel the warm embrace of Kris. She had given him so much more than just her body. She had given him more than he'd ever gotten from another woman. Or perhaps the truth was that he, for the first time in his life, had been really receptive.

He began to wonder whether the delightful blonde who had said she loved him, and to whom he had pledged his own love, in fact represented something new and important in his life, or whether he was kidding himself. After all, he didn't know her very well, and he had been beset by many conflicting emotions in the last few days. Returning to Cannon Oaks had, in itself, been a traumatic experience and there had been his involvement at the office and his face-to-face confrontation with the father whose very existence he had sought to forget during the last few years.

He had a lot of thinking to do. And perhaps some testing ...

When he arrived in Los Angeles, he got into a taxi. "Sunset Strip," he said.

"That's a couple miles long, mister," the cabbie replied. "You want to break it down a little?"

"Okay," he agreed, mentioning a bar at the intersection of the street that led up the hill to his apartment house. Later, he could walk to the apartment from there. For the time being, he wasn't anxious to return home.

He sat back and watched the evening traffic flow around them as the driver headed the cab east on Century Boulevard, then up the ramp to the San Diego Freeway. They moved north for a little way and dropped off on La Cienega-the boulevard which, past Wilshire, was known as restaurant row. Many were the nights, Jeff mused, when he dropped a good piece of change squiring cheap chicks to those spots. They were cheap in the sense that they were easy lays, but not in their tastes when they found a man who would spend money on them.

Money and sex, he thought. Do they really make the world go around, after all?

La Cienega merged with Sunset and the cab swung to the left. Very quickly it pulled to the curb and stopped. "Here we are, mister," the cabbie announced.

"Now for some serious drinking," Jeff said as he paid the fare and added a handsome tip.

"Have one for me," the cabbie told him.

The small club was dim and unfamiliar. Jeff had never patronized the place. Always in the past, when he was this close to home, he had done his drinking in the apartment.

He sat down at the bar and ordered Scotch and water.

- He wasn't sure just when he became aware of the girl. A man had been seated between them at the bar; now he was gone. Jeff had glanced around the room casually a couple of times, then had returned his attention to his glass. He was halfway through the second refill when his eyes became a little lost in the back-bar mirror. He drank some more. And then he glanced down the bar and found the girl smiling at him-not a big Sunday promenade smile, or the kind of smile he would have expected from a person who was selling something. This was more of a glimmer with the eyes, a slight quirk at the corner of the mouth.

It caused him to look at the girl more closely.

He didn't recognize her at first. He thought she was just a white-blonde with an impressive chest. Girls with that shade of hair were not a rarity in Hollywood, and impressive chests were even more numerous than palm trees.

He let his gaze drift to her supple waist and to the fullness of her hips against the bar stool. She was wearing a blue skimpy dress, off the shoulders and hiked high above her knees. A stray beam of light caught the metallic clasp of a garter on her near thigh.

Suddenly Jeff had an urge to unhook the garter. And her other garters. He had an urge to lift her skirt and slide her panties off.

He picked up his drink and carried it down the bar. When he was beside her, he realized he was gazing, close up for the first time, at the girl he had frequently observed through the telescope in his den-the one he had last watched screwing a dark-skinned man.

And this chick wasn't really a blonde at all. Her natural hair was as dark as that of her recent dark-skinned lover.

"Hello," he said, and sat down. He now had a greater desire than ever to make her. He often had wondered how the girl managed to maneuver her boy friends in front of a wide-spread window for their orgies. She obviously was an exhibitionist, but he was damned if he was going to play the sucker for her perverted scheme. When they arrived at her apartment-if they did-he was going to avoid all windows like the plague.

She charmingly enhanced her smile and said, "Do I know you?"

It obviously was not an attempt to brush him off, but rather an immediate opening which she expected him to fill.

"We've met," he said. "Don't you remember? A party one night at PJ's."

"Oh."

"I'm Jeff Bardell," he smiled.

"Liza Dubois," she said.

"Of course. May I?" He indicated her glass.

She gave a giddy little laugh. "Thank you."

Hr ordered refills for them both.

The pickup was absurdly easy, and even before they stepped into a taxi at the front door of the club for the three-block, uphill ride to her place, Jeff was wondering if he wanted to go through with it. It wasn't that Liza was not pretty enough. She had eye-opening dimensions boob-wise and, as he was just now fully appreciating, at the hips as well. She was bent forward, climbing into the taxi in front of him, and he had an insane urge to grasp the wiggling curves which were so temptingly displayed. But, since he was not insane, he fought the urge down.

She sat, cocked one pretty leg over the other, and smiled at him. He had consumed five drinks and he judged she'd had at least that many. This made for a certain erotic euphoria. But the girl was obviously just another easy lay.

Since when had easy lays offended him, he wondered in sudden surprise. Throughout his adult life he had looked to ladies of easy virtue (as his grandfather would have called them) for most of his sex. Jeff had always regarded them as God's gift to the ever-ready male. Now, suddenly, he had become a moralist.

That was a laugh.

He relaxed a little and resolved to roll with the punches. "

He glanced frequently at Liza during the short drive to her place. The street was a little uneven and the taxi twisted and turned. All this up and down, back and forth motion caused the exposed tops of Liza's luscious breasts to tremble. Now he could hardly wait to get her inside the apartment and push that dress down.

Nothing had been said about a fee. The girl obviously fraternized for fun. He asked her earlier if she was an actress and she had said no, that she was a model . . . off and on. He imagined she could be seen most any day on any Main Street newsstand if a man were to flip up the pages of the right nudie magazine. She probably had appeared in porno films, too. A broad who was such an exhibitionist wouldn't have missed any chances along that line.

She offered him more booze when they were inside her apartment, but he said, "I'd rather drink you," and fitted his lips to hers.

Before he could slip his tongue into her mouth, she had already slid hers between his teeth. He let her handle the pressure. As her tongue rubbed his and circled around, he lowered both hands to the perky, but soft curves of her ass. He cupped the cheeks and juggled them as she kissed him. He gripped them and wiggled them around, drawing her pelvis tightly to his at the same time. His cock commenced enlarging.

When she felt this, she broke the kiss and barked away.

"Come on," she murmured. "In here."

He resisted her pulling at his arm. "Wait a minute. Is that the room with the big window?"

"Big window?" She blinked.

"Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but. . . well, the fact is I've been spying on you for weeks "

"Really?" Her face lit up.

"Mmm. I've got a big, long telescope."

She tittered. "I can see that." She pointed at the tent in his slacks.

"Never mind. I really have a telescope, and my apartment is just a little ways up the hill. I've watched you screwing other men."

"Jeff!" she exclaimed in mock disapproval.

"You perform charmingly. Don't get me wrong. But I'm a little sensitive about being spied on. I mean, if other guys are willing, that's okay. But I would rather have you all to myself while we're together."

"Don't worry," she murmured, tugging at his arm again. "We won't use the bedroom with the wide window. We'll use this one." She pulled him through an open doorway.

The room was luxuriously done, like her other one, in pinks and white and beige-but it had no window, only a wide, pink-tinted mirror that took up nearly an entire wall.

"See?" she said pointing. "We can watch ourselves. Isn't that far-out?"

If Jeff had not had so many drinks so quickly, he might have smelled a mouse. But, as it was, all he smelled was the girl-and Chantilly fragrance of Liza, and the idea of the mirror and the lights remaining on pleased him.

They undressed.

The bra she wore was very low-cut, a pair of half-shells that barely concealed her nipples. When she took the bra away, her breasts relaxed slightly. Her nipples were already standing out like rosy pegs.

Jeff undressed quickly, and could not keep from glancing at himself in the mirror as he looked at the real and reflected images of Liza. He could see all aspects of her at once this way-her breasts and the front of her pale blue panty briefs and, in the mirror, the seat of her panties where the nylon stretched taut, allowing the bottom curves of her buttocks to partially escape.

Her thighs were particularly appealing in the soft light, and even more toothsome reflected in the rosy mirror. He wanted to kiss them right away, but he restrained the urge and quickened the pace of his undressing.

Finally, when both he and Liza were nude, they tumbled together on her king-sized bed.

He kissed her all over.

Strangely, as he was kissing, he became aware of how very different this was from the rendezvous he'd had with Kris that morning. Liza's breasts were softer and more globular, and the circles around her nipples didn't puff up as Kris' did. Liza's nipples were a little more pink, while Kris' were a delicate beige. But that didn't matter. It didn't matter either that Liza's pussy was a different color than the hair on her head, or that she giggled foolishly when he kissed her belly button. Those were superficial phenomena. The important thing was that he felt different about what he was doing. This was partially on a physical plane, as evidenced by the fact that his slight erection for her was not nearly as hard as it had been for Kris. (But the alcohol could have accounted for that or the mere fact of his having just screwed Kris that morning.) Mainly, it was a psychological factor. Liza, sexy and voluptuous as she was, didn't attract him as deeply as Kris did. There was an element missing.

He could conclude only that the difference had to do with Liza herself-the person rather than the body-who she was, what she was, and what she represented to him.

He didn't trouble himself about it at the time. Now his prick was pointing the way, and he proceeded to milk all the delights of her hot, quivering flesh. He kissed up and down her leg, as he had promised himself he would. He flopped Liza onto her stomach and kissed down the gentle

S-curve of her back to the point where it flared up at him in plump, close-set buttocks.

"Kiss my ass," she said. "Please."

There was really no reason why he shouldn't, It was a sweet, dainty vista With all the voluptuous appeal a man could ask. But he didn't.

She whimpered as he rolled her over and watched her round breasts float back and forth and eventually come to a quivering stop atop her ribcage.

She lifted her legs, pulled her cuntlips open with her hands and whined, "Come on, honey, come on and fuck me now."

It was during the initial moment, as he slipped his kick into her gash, that the difference between her and Kris was brought powerfully back to his mind. Here again, the difference was not strictly physical-though his feelings played an important part. Kris had been a woman, a human being, whereas Liza was merely a cunt-a cunt he had fucked hundreds of time-no, thousands, but with hundreds of different broads.

As he began his strokes and as Liza moved her hips with him, whimpering, mewing, acting as if she could hardly get enough, the difference seemed even more apparent. He was not as homy and emotionally involved as he had been with Kris. -

He fucked her quickly, inconsiderately, wanting to get it over with. But Liza was not to be hurried. She kept looking at the mirrored image of the two of them, and Jeff, propped on his arms, glanced at it, too. This had a tendency to speed things up even more.

When he finally spurted his seed into her fevered pussy, shuddered and felt her shuddering with him, he was more relieved than ecstatic.

As soon as it was over, he stood up.

"What's the matter, sweetie?" she murmured lazily. "Wasn't I good?"

"You were great. Just great. I can recommend you highly."

"Oh, would you?"

The bitch actually seemed serious. He gave her a thin smile and began putting on his clothes.

She remained where she was, spread apart on the bed as he had seen her many times through the telescope.

Her blue panties were lying on the rug, and Jeff picked them up. Whimsically he draped them over the top of the bedside lamp.

"What did you do that for?" she asked lazily.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "A note of blue contrasts nicely with the pink in the room."

"You're crazy," she giggled.

He didn't take much time for amenities before leaving.

As he walked the rest of the way to his own apartment, he thought about calling Kris right away. There was no use kidding himself. She did mean something special to him, something very special. He was more sure of it now, after being with another girl. He wasn't at all certain that little Liza might not turn out to be the last girl of her type that he would ever go to bed with.

He entered the silent apartment which had been home to him for the past two years. He looked casually around.

He had no feeling for the place, really. It was an upholstered playground, comparable in its way to the grass and concrete playgrounds that were provided for children.

He strolled into the den where the telescope tolled forward on its tripod in front of the window-wall. Many were the sights he had seen through that. The sights had amused him between bouts of his own, or when he needed a little added stimulation to prepare him for what had long ago become a largely joyless romping with his wife.

As he thought about Sophia now, he had little feeling one way or the other. He had never been in love with her. Now there was no hate. There was, if anything, a faint tinge of nostalgia-simple nostalgia, that was all.

He smiled to himself and idly tilted the eyepiece of the telescope up to his face. He scanned the horizon, hunting for the widest window he ever peeked into-the one in Liza's apartment. He expected it to be dark now, but he thought he would check, just for fun. She wasn't above entertaining another man right after she had romped with him, he was sure. He had watched her take on two and even three in a night, on several occasions.

There!

The window was alight. He adjusted the focus and peered more closely.

The room was pink and white, like the one he had just left. In fact, the bed was rumpled much as Liza and he had rumpled the one on which he'd just taken her.

A note of contrasting color struck his eye and, with sudden swift comprehension, his face became bathed in scarlet. He had taken her in front of the wide window after all, for there were her blue panties draped on top of the lamp shade where he had put them. The mirror was the answer. It was a two-way job. To the people in the room, it reflected what they were doing, and at the same time advertised their activities to the whole world.

"Fuck!"

Thought crossed his mind:

Go back there and beat that cunt's fanny until it's tomato red.

Call the police and complain about a "public nuisance."

Forget it.

The third thought was the one he tried to act on. Anyway, what difference did it make? If someone had watched him with her, he hoped they had enjoyed themselves. There was precious little real enjoyment in the world, he realized now.

He stepped to the telephone, intent upon consolidating his claim to the one source of true enjoyment that he had. Kris would leave Cannon Oaks he was sure. He could persuade her to do that. If she insisted on taking a job with another company, he would let her. In the meantime, he would line up something for himself. The fact that he didn't have to work was not going to mean he would remain idle any more. There was too much to be done in the world.

The ringing of the telephone, just as he reached for it, startled him. It was almost as if it had responded to the signal of his thoughts or to the lifting of his hand, as a magician's gimmick might do.

He picked it up. "Hello?"

"Mister Jeff Bardell, please. Cannon Oaks, California, calling."

Sophia, he thought. Then: Dad.

He didn't want to speak with either of them. He thought about hanging up. But something made him remain on the line. He finally said, "Yes, this is Bardell."

"Go ahead, please," the operator instructed.

"Jeff? Darling?"

It was Kris.

"Yes, sweetheart! How are you? It's so wonderful to hear your voice. My God, it's really you!"

"And wonderful to hear yours, except I wish you weren't so far away. Can you talk?"

"Of course."

I've spent all afternoon and evening working on the Glu-Pane thing. I even went to the company lab and looked over the results of the experiments we ran yesterday. You know, Jeff, the hunch you had about the new process was right. And those shortcuts you suggested for the administrative end of it-they're sure to work."

"You're sure?"

"No doubt about it now. I thought you would want to know."

"Yes. I'm glad you called. Of course, I would have been glad anyway, darling. The truth is, I was about to call you. I wanted to ask you to leave there and join me in L.A."

"Jeff! Now that we know the project is sound, you can come back here. You can make Kelly look like the silly ass he is, and persuade your father to put you back in charge."

"Persuade Dad? Oh, darling, you don't know your Bardells."

"I know one of them-you. And I know this is exactly what you need. You've proved yourself on this project-the very first one you tackled. Now you have to convince your father. You have to face up to him and get your own way for once. After that, you won't feel the same about him as you used to, and he'll have respect for you."

Jeff remained silent. He was wondering if perhaps she was right.

"Don't you see? You've always given in to your father's tyranny. Running away and wasting your life was just as much an expression of defeat as remaining here under his domination would have been. Well, now you don't have to do either. You can come back to take your rightful place at the head of this company. I'll tell you this much-I'm not going to hand the results of our work over to Kelly. If you don't come back, the Glu-Pane project will go down the drain and the company will lose several million dollars in the years to come."

"But there's something I haven't told you," he said. "There's the way my mother died."

"What about it? She was a suicide. That's well known in town."

"But why did she kill herself? That's what people don't know. But I do. It was Dad's ruthless domination of her. He sapped her of the desire to live."

"Have you ever discussed that with him?" Kris asked slowly.

"No. I can't outright accuse him, because there's nothing tangible. But I know the old man. I know how he always treated me. Looking back on it, I can see that he must have treated Mother the same way."

"Jeff the townspeople know why she killed herself. I've heard it from two or three different sources. Your father evidently didn't tell you because he didn't want to compound the hurt, and you were young when you left here. Then too, she had only been dead a very short time."

"What are you getting at? What have you heard?"

"She was incurably ill," Kris said. "It was a rapidly spreading cancer. She found out about it less than a month before she died."

"Then that would explain why she was so disturbed," he murmured, as much to himself as to the woman he loved on the other end of the phone. "And all these years I've blamed Dad."

"He probably deserves some blame for the way he treated you, and perhaps for the way he treated her, also-for being the driving sort of individual he is. But that quality made the company successful, and that quality will cause him to appreciate what you've accomplished and take you back."

Jeff let his mind range quickly over the years, then a broad smile spread across his face, overcoming the sense of tragedy associated with his father's death. She would want him and his father to be reunited. Now he wanted that, too.

"Jeff? Darling? What do you say?"

"Reserve a room for me at a motel. The Morning Glory is all right. I'll be there tomorrow."

"A motel isn't necessary if you're thinking that your wife is at the house. I called there a little while ago to see if you were still in town, and she told me you had left. She also said she was about to catch a plane for Reno."

"No kidding!" he shouted gleefully.

"Easy, darling. I'm afraid you're going to have a fight on your hands."

"Since when was I afraid of a fight--with her, with Dad, with anybody. I love you, understand? I want to marry you. What.do you say to that?"

"There's only one thing I can say--yes!"

"That's all I wanted to hear, sweetheart. I'll be on the first plane in the morning. I'm coming home to stay!"