Chapter 2

He dropped into a chair and let the single sheet of paper flutter to the rug.

He thought, what a hell of a way for a man to find out his father is dying!

Jeff was still seated there, nude, when his wife, Sophia, arrived home from her shopping tour, ten minutes later. She was a slim woman of twenty-six, artificially red-haired. They had been married for five years; they did not love one another, but there was a remarkable amount of understanding and compatibility between them.

"Well!" she exclaimed. "What's this for?"

"Oh," he said casually, "I just fucked Lupita."

"Congratulations. So what else is new?"

"Sophia . . . Dad's dying."

"Dying?"

He pointed to the letter on the floor. "I had to find out about it from his lawyers."

She studied him. "Well, I guess it's a jolt, whether a person cares for his father or not."

"Nonsense. The old bugger's dying would give me a sense of relief, except for what it means to us."

"I don't understand."

"Read the fucking letter," he said.

She squatted, poking stockinged knees several inches out from the hem of her skirt, and picked the letter up. She read:

Dear Mr.Bardell:

Your father has asked us to inform you of his recent stroke and near-total incapacity. His doctors are of the opinion, in view of a steady deterioration of vital signs, that his illlness is terminal. This being the case, he wishes you to come to Cannon Oaks immediately to assume control of the Bardell Paper Company.

Please advise us, as soon as possible following your receipt of this letter, when we may expect you.

Sincerely,

Bunyan and Hall,

Attorneys at Law

by Gus Bunyan.

Sophia looked up at him and said, "I can't believe it."

"That Dad's dying? Well, the old boy's in his middle-sixties. Anything can happen when you reach that age."

"No. I can't believe that you would be notified this way."

"That surprised me, too," Jeff admitted. "But Dad and I haven't spoken for the last couple of years. The lawyers have handled everything. So he left this up to them to handle, too."

She looked at the letter and reread, "Come to Cannon Oaks immediately to assume ..."

"Tell Bunyan and Hall."

"Bunyan and Hall, my ass! They don't tell you what to do!"

"Oh, don't they? Who's going to run the estate? Who's going to disburse the funds?"

"There's a will, isn't there?"

"Yes, and you can bet it gives a great deal of discretionary power to them. If I don't snap to and carry on the family business the way Dad wants, he's probably got it fixed so I won't inherit anything."

"But that's terrible!"

"Yeah."

"You don't know anything about the paper business."

"Right."

"You don't know anything about any business."

"I majored in business administration at Stanford. You ought to remember that. You used to help me with my homework."

"The kind of homework I helped you with had nothing to do with your classes," she said.

"Well, occasionally I had some books lying open beside the bed. I thought you might have glanced at them.

She dropped into a chair opposite him and her stockinged legs sprawled across the rug. "What are we going to do?"

"Go to Cannon Oaks, of course. I hate the thought as much as you do, but we're at least going to have to put in an appearance."

Lupita appeared from the back of the apartment. When she saw he was still naked and seated with his wife, she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

"Oh, Lupe," Sophia said. "I understand you and Mister Bardell had a good time while I was gone."

She gasped again, sharply, and turned in fright. Sophia laughed. "Come back here!"

Lupita reappeared meekly.

"It's all right," said Sophia. "Mister Bardell and I have a perfect understanding. He fucks whom he wants and so do I. Sometimes we even help one another make arrangements. So don't worry."

"Meesus Bardell..." she murmured.

"What's the matter? You think that's shocking?"

"Eet ees . . . how you say? Extrano."

"Strange. Yes, I suppose it is. But it's the way we choose to live. Right, darling?"

"Oh, right! Very right."

"So don't hesitate to express yourself freely toward my husband at any time. I won't mind, I assure you."

Lupita stared at her for a moment, took a long look at Jeff's sprawled nakedness, then turned and disappeared in the hallway, murmuring to herself in Spanish.

"Poor girl," said Sophia. "By the way, how was she?"

"Good enough for two goes at it."

"But then you read the letter and it took your erection away?"

"Yeah."

"Have you called them yet?"

"Nope."

"When are you going to?"

"Right away, I suppose." He took a deep breath and sighed again. "Gannon Oaks. God, I haven't seen that place in . . . well, since I graduated from high school. That was twelve years ago."

"I've never seen it at all. How large is it?"

"It used to be about three thousand people. Dad's factory practically supports the town. That's all there is that amounts to anything."

She glanced at the sunburst clock on the wall. "You'd better call pretty soon if you're going to. It's after four o'clock."

He cursed silently to himself.

"What size martini to you want?" she asked as she crossed to the expensively paneled bar. "A double or a triple?"

"Martini, hell! Just bring the Beefeaters."

"Ice?"

"No."

He walked into the den to the telephone, carrying the lawyers' letter. He got the area code and number from the letterhead and dialed.

The door chimes rang as he was waiting for the phone to be answered. Sophia set the Beefeaters and a glass on the desk beside him and said, "I'll get it. Maybe Lupe hasn't recovered yet."

"By the way, darling," he called. "Give her some of your vitamin pills and tell her how to use them, will you?"

"Will do."

"Bunyan and Hall," a woman's voice said into his ear.

"Mister Bunyan, please. Jeff Bardell, Junior calling."

"Oh, yes, Mister Bardell. We were waiting to hear from you. One moment."

Jeff waited.

"Hello, Mister Bardell," a deep male voice boomed. "Gus Bunyan here. Sorry to have had to notify you about your father's illness in the way we did, but that was how he wanted it."

"I understand."

"When are you flying up?"

"Tell me this, Mister Bunyan: How long does Dad have?"

"No one knows, but the doctors are afraid it won't be long. He's growing weaker. I'm very sorry, Mister Bardell."

"Let's not be maudlin. We both stand to profit from the estate."

"Mister Bard-"

Jeff cut off his exclamation of shock with, "Is it absolutely necessary that I appear, or is there some other way this can be handled?"

"Well, I ..."

"Please be frank with me, Bunyan. After Dad goes, you'll be my attorney. That is, if we get along."

Bunyan cleared his throat. "I would advise you to come up right away. That's all I can tell you. Your father was very explicit."

"All right. I'll check for a flight in the morning."

"I've already checked," Bunyan said. "There's one leaving Los Angeles for Redding at seven-ten."

"That's the middle of the night," Jeff protested.

"It's the only flight. The next is two-thirty in the afternoon. That would get you here after business hours."

"All right," Jeff said with a sigh. "Seven-ten it is. Will you have someone meet me at the airport?"

"I'll be there, Mister Bardell."

"Okay. See you then."

Jeff hung up.

"What's all this?" a woman's voice asked. "Leaving town?"

Jeff turned to find himself facing, nude, an old friend named Betty Finstad. She and her first husband, Fred, had gone to college with Sophia and Jeff. Her new husband, George, wasn't as broad-minded as Fred, and the Bardells hadn't seen much of the Finstads lately.

"Hi, Betty," he said. Then, in answer to her question, added, "yeah, we're taking off for Cannon Oaks. My father's dying."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Oh, not you, too. Please!" He poured himself a triple shot of gin and asked, "Want one?"

"Not like that. Sophia's fixing me a Gibson."

Carrying his drink, he followed her into the living room. She gestured at his wagging cock and asked, "Were you getting ready to do something with that or had you just done it?"

"I might be persuaded," he said.

"It's tempting, but I promised George no more swapping. Thanks, darling," she added as Sophia handed her the cocktail.

The three of them sat down.

Betty, an exceedingly well-proportioned blonde crossed her legs high and let her short skirt pull back. Jeff stared at a slice of golden under-thigh.

"I popped over to tell you about a bash I'm planning for Friday. I suppose you'll be out of town, right?" Her lips kissed the cocktail glass.

"Well, not both of us," Sophia said.

"Yes, both of us," Jeff corrected, looking sternly at his wife. "Cannon Oaks is going to be bad enough without my having to stick it out alone."

"He needs moral support, the darling," Sophie said. "He has to take over his father's business."

"Sounds like fun," Betty suggested.

"You don't know Cannon Oaks," Jeff told her.

All the while they were talking, Jeff continued to visually caress the little patch of bare thigh that was visible on the leg which Betty crossed over her other one. It had been a long time since he'd fucked the pretty blonde, and he felt a strong urge for her now, all the more so because her new husband was so strict.

A subtle change began to come over Jeff's anatomy as his gaze licked her thigh. It was subtle, at first, because not a very long time had passed since he had twice screwed Lupita. But he was a man capable of remarkably quick recovery.

Betty twisted slightly in her chair and-wink! He caught the barest glimpse of her rich, red slit.

His cock saluted.

"Jeff!" Betty squealed delightedly. But she wrapped her skirt snugly around her.

"Sorry," he said. "You really ought to wear panties."

Sophia watched in mild amusement.

Betty stood up. "Well, I'm leaving. George would kill me if I were to do anything naughty and he found out."

"That's too many if's," Jeff said as he took to his feet. He made an impressive spectacle.

Betty took a final quick glance, set down her unfinished cocktail, and bee-lined for the door. "Bye, you two," she said. "Write me from up north, okay?" And she was gone.

"Damn," Jeff muttered.

His wife gazed at him and let the smile she had been wearing take fuller possession of her face. She stood up. "Come on," she said. "You need a little taming down."

He watched her girdled hips sway through the den toward the bedroom. He followed, pausing on the way to pour himself another large jolt of Beefeaters.

Sophia had removed her two-piece pantsuit by the time he arrived in the bedroom.

She said, "We're going to have to do something about Betty and George. I've been itching to get him on a mattress, and you made it pretty plain that you've missed Betty."

"We have other things to think about now."

"You mean right now or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow. Cannon Oaks."

She bent, and with a taut double flip release her brassiered boobies. They were small a nd perfectly erect.

Jeff took another gulp of gin.

Sophia moved to a chair, breasts trembling, and sat down to remove her hose. She still had the college girl's body he remembered at Stanford. He reacted to it now as he had reacted then. There never had been any love between them, in the sentimental sense; he had married her because she was a good companion who was willing to share the way of life he had chosen for himself. Neither of them had changed in any important respect. They were still a pair of rebels-he against the dull provincialism into which he had been born and in which his father had sought permanently to entrap him, and she against a father who had preached sainthood to her while he practiced deviltry with every loose-hipped broad in San Francisco.

Moreover, their way of life had worked because it had given both of them pleasure with no sacrifice of material security, and material security was the only kind either of them thought they needed.

Jeff watched her peel away her nylons, baring legs that were smooth and slim. All action-that was what Sophia was built for. She was athletic both in and out of the bedroom.

She stood and rolled her pantygirdle down.

Her wearing of that armor had always seemed a contradiction to Jeff. She had no physical need for it, since she had no belly to speak of and her hips possessed only the gentlest roundness. Her buttocks were perky but small. He supposed there was a psychological need of some sort which he had never quite fathomed. He didn't buy the explanation she had given him long ago, that she wore a girdle to keep her stockings smooth. Garter belts were less constrictive and they worked as well. Besides, she could get pantyhose.

But Sophia's choice of underwear was entirely her own business, as far as he was concerned.

She stepped out of the pantygirdle and tossed it aside. "There," she said, smiling wickedly as she thrust out her ample pubic bush at him. "Now, tell me-will this be a suitable substitute for what Betty showed you?"

"Well, I've always been partial to blonde hair, but any port in a storm."

"You dog! I ought to cross my legs and tell you to whistle."

"You tried that once when we were playing, remember?" he said, eyes a twinkle. "I just hoisted your legs up in front of me, and went to work that way."

"And I kicked you in the snout, as I recall," she said, walking over to him. "Hey, what the devil did I do with my drink?"

He watched her stroll out to the living room, and admired the twitch of her little buttocks. He took the rest of the gin in his glass. Now he had a very warm glow, centering in his stomach and spreading all the way down to his crotch.

He went to the bed and stretched out on his back.

When Sophia returned, sipping at her cocktail, he said, "You do the work this time, will you, honey? I feel kind of bushed."

"You don't look bushed. "Bushy would be more like it."

"Just the same, Lupita was a pretty rough tumble."

Standing beside the bed and watching him, her lips moving next to the martini glass, Sophia asked, "Did she fight?"

"At first. I talked her out of her dress and slip, but she wouldn't go any further so I had to take tilings into my own hands."

"I'll bet you enjoyed that. You've always said a little struggle adds spice."

"She didn't struggle much. She was hungry."

"Mmm."

Sophia drained her glass and set it down beside the bed. Now her eyes, too, reflected a liquored warmth.

"Climb aboard," he said huskily and extended his arms toward her.

Sophia positioned herself atop Jeff, straddling his pelvis, and then-with no foreplay whatsoever-she sat back on her heels and swallowed his cock into her juicy slit.

"Mmmph," Jeff moaned at the sudden envelopment.

"How's that?" she asked, her eyes smoky now as she looked down at him.

"Fantastic," he sighed. "When does the action begin?"

"Right now!" she said, raising up slightly and then jamming her cunt down hard on his full erection.

"Oooph!"

"And again!" she said more excitedly, repeating the movement.

"Yes!" Jeff panted. "Goddamn, you've got the hottest box of any woman I know!"

"Thanks," she said, ramming her cunt down on him again.

It felt like even his balls were slithering up inside her. Jeff gripped her hips with his hands and began lifting her body up and down over him more gently.

But she would have none of it.

She pulled free of his grasp and slammed her cunt home again. "Harder!" she hissed. "I want you to do it hard!"

"I am hard, damn it!" he retorted, lifting his hips into her and shoving his rod in as far as it could possibly go.

"That's not what I meant-and you know it!" Sophia closed her eyes.and began bobbing up and down on him frantically. "God, I'm so hot! So hot! So ..."

Jeff reached down and pinched her clit with his fingers, whenever he could catch it, which succeeded in making her bounce even faster. When she was this hot, this little trick always made her come.

"Ooooh! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" She came. She shuddered all over-then went perfectly rigid. A few seconds later she collapsed and her body sank down over him, with his shaft still fully impaled.

Jeff gave her a few tentative jabs.

"Oooh, no, wait . . . wait a minute . . . just a minute .. . please ..." she moaned.

Jeff waited, hoping his hard-on wouldn't disappear, and concentrated his thoughts on Lupita.

All too soon, however, Sophia was back for more. Refusing to give up her dominant position, she lifted her torso backward until she could settle her weight back down on his crotch, and then she resumed fucking him.

Jeff shut his eyes to the sight of her small. wobbly breasts, and with a smile, remembered Lupita's big, lush ones.

Sophia scarcely noticed the smile. She was still beated up and her eyes were shut tight and her mouth hung open slackly.

She was rotating her hips now in a full circle-around and around-and then she would suddenly drop down on him hard. Over and over again she kept it up, and the sensation began to drive Jeff crazy. His knees were beginning to turn to jelly and he knew his time was coming.

He grasped her hips forcibly this time, and began banging her up and down, allowing her no freedom for that rotation bullshit. The more he banged her, the more he felt Hke his balls were following his cock up her slick shaft.

"God," he groaned.

"You-you're going t-t-to make me c-c-come again!" Sophia squealed as she arched her back and readied herself for orgasm. In her delirium, she began clawing at his pubic hairs-pulling on them, squeezing the skin beneath and scratching him with her fingernails.

Jeff gritted his teeth and dug his own fingernails into the flesh of her hips.

"Ow! You're hurting me!" she complained, snapping back to her senses. She released her grip on his cock curls at the same time-and then it was all over.

As soon as the annoying pain ceased, Jeff slammed her pussy down on him one last time and went off like a geyser.

Sophia, not wanting to be left, behind, bounced up and down on his gushing staff and plunged her hand down into her cuntlips. She rubbed herself with a frenzy, masturbating before his eyes-which caused him to come a little more-and then she too was taken over by climax.

"Sonofabitch!" she screamed before her muscles jerked her body every whichway, uncontrollably, and she finally toppled over and off him.

Much later, after dinner and more drinking and a half-hearted attempt to watch television, Sophia finally gave up and went to bed. Jeff lingered in front of the glass wall of the den, a drink in one hand and the eyepiece of his mounted telescope in the other.

He was not looking at the stars.

There was a bleached blonde who had an apartment a little ways down the hill and whose bedroom was on the side of the house facing the Bardells' apartment. She had a great variety of boy friends, and she enjoyed making love by lamplight without bothering to close her drapes.

Jeff wondered how she got her boy friends to stand for that, but obviously she managed it somehow. They seemed oblivious to the huge unshaded window.

She was with the dark one tonight. He was extremely dark Puerto Rican or Cuban or perhaps-African in descent. Jeff could not be sure. But he was a pov/erful man and the blonde was enjoying him dearly.

The trouble was, Jeff had drunk so much on this particular evening that he could hardly make out what was happening in her apartment. The lovers were indistinct blurs on the bed, alternately moving more closely together, then separating slightly. Except for the dramatic difference in skin tones, he would have had difficulty making any sense of it all, but, as it was, the blonde's scissoring golden legs contrasted strikingly with the man's cafe au lait thickness.

Jeff stopped watching to down the remainder of the drink he held, then inadvertently jarred the telescope and set it out of focus and off target. "Fuck," he swore aloud.

In his condition, it took him several minutes to find the right window amid the vast panorama of gleaming lights and a few seconds more to refocus the instrument. When this was accomplished, the fuck had ended. The blonde lay on her back alone, wantonly advertising the fact that only her hairdresser knew.

Jeff let the telescope go and moved where his wife was sprawled in the center of the bed, uncovered and unclothed. He stood for a little while looking at her, then looked down at his thoroughly deflated cock.

Too much sex and too much booze, he mused. They always deflated a man in the end.

He dropped his empty glass on the shag rug and moved up beside the bed.

"Hey," he said to Sophia, "make way, will you?"

"Mmmm?"

"Make room. I'm getting in."

"Welcome," she murmured. Her legs moved apart.

"Not like that, you sex fiend," he mumbled, and gave her a rude shove to her side of the bed.

"Spoil-sport," she hissed sleepily.

He reclined on the bed beside her with a sigh. He looked at the pebbly white acoustical ceiling which was now shrouded in dimness, and thought disconsolately of Cannon Oaks.

Well, at least Lupita would be there with him. That would relieve boredom for a while.